Racing heart rate and BP

[realkarl]

Yesterday, Saturday, I had a very scary experience with my heart rate and BP both running out of control. The whole thing started after a bicycle ride. The exercise was perhaps a little harder than usual (max pulse 158), considering I had also been pretty active throughout the day. A while after I sat down, my HR was still at least 130-140 HR and BP 160/110. I was too scared to measure right then, but I have good experience estimating. I did not have any other symptoms, no chest pain, no shortness of breath, no lightheadedness or dizziness, or I would have certainly called 911.

I figured it was a limited symptom panic attack, so I took 2mg Lorazepam and 25 mg Carvedilol. After 1 hour or so, it appeared to normalize at 105 and 125/80 (measured), but then started going back up.

So then I went to my hospital's urgent care (not quite ER) where they measured HR 117 and BP 150/105. They took my EKG, chest X-rays and blood samples, but found nothing wrong. They gave me Metoprolol intravenously which brought the HR down to 95 and BP 120/70. It was strange how the day turned out, I had measured my lowest HR since the surgery at 85 in the morning and was happy with that.

I was discharged with instructions to increase morning and nightly dose of Carvedilol to 25mg and to contact my cardiologist this week. I had increased Carvedilol to 12.5mg twice a day (from 6.25) a couple of weeks ago, to better control HR and BP as my heart gets stronger.

The scare from the "runaway" heart rate episode still sits in me, and I am worried something is wrong, other than just anxiety, but from what I found in searching this forum, I see many posts where people's cardiologists have said that episodes of racing heart is quite common the first few months after surgery... That makes me feel better, but I will check with my own cardio tomorrow, Monday.

Karl.

 

[Danny]

Hi Karl, sounds like it was quite a scare. I am 12 days post op....and my heart rate has been hi since surgery. I went to see cardio thurs... and he said it was ok... pre surgery it would run about mid 50s to low 60s, now it hangs around low to mid 80s. He told me that my body had just went through a huge surgery, and a few hickups here and there for a few months are normal. I hope that helps some.

 

[Bill B]

Danny - This may be relevant to you. My heart is racing post-surgically, but I have anemia from surgery. My hematocrit is 29. Normalis in the 40s. See if you are anemic.

 

[Lynlw]

Danny - This may be relevant to you. My heart is racing post-surgically, but I have anemia from surgery. My hematocrit is 29. Normalis in the 40s. See if you are anemic.

That happened to Justin too after he had the second surgery 10 days later than the previous one. We were surprised at how high his HR was since he usually hangs in the 50s

 

[ponygirlmom]

Yesterday, Saturday, I had a very scary experience with my heart rate and BP both running out of control. The whole thing started after a bicycle ride. The exercise was perhaps a little harder than usual (max pulse 158), considering I had also been pretty active throughout the day. A while after I sat down, my HR was still at least 130-140 HR and BP 160/110. I was too scared to measure right then, but I have good experience estimating. I did not have any other symptoms, no chest pain, no shortness of breath, no lightheadedness or dizziness, or I would have certainly called 911.

I figured it was a limited symptom panic attack, so I took 2mg Lorazepam and 25 mg Carvedilol. After 1 hour or so, it appeared to normalize at 105 and 125/80 (measured), but then started going back up.

Karl --

I am curious to know why you immediately thought you were having a panic attack. I mean, prior to realizing that your heart was going fast, were you disturbed in any way? You don't mention it.

Is this the first time that this has happened? Perhaps it will be the only time.

Bill is right that anemia can cause a high heart rate after surgery. Another thing that can cause it is a buildup of fluid around the heart, or swelling of the tissue that surrounds the heart. That's what I had, and it cause my heart rate to much higher than it should be. (It didn't raise my blood pressure very high, however.)

 

[Lily]

Karl, you used the term "runaway." I don't know if this could be your situation, but the term you used reminded me of how I described some sudden-onset post-op A-fib that I developed, though one week post-op. It seemed to come and go for a few days but when the doctor finally caught it with an EKG, he wanted me to readmit ASAP.

 

[realkarl]

Karl --
I am curious to know why you immediately thought you were having a panic attack. I mean, prior to realizing that your heart was going fast, were you disturbed in any way? You don't mention it.

Is this the first time that this has happened? Perhaps it will be the only time.

Well, I have had some problems with anxiety, and a couple of near panic attacks in the past. It's been a while though, but I have found that after my surgery, I am more sensitive to my freshly operated heart, and as you know, with anxiety comes adrenalin, causing physical reactions like rapid HR, generating more anxiety, and then more adrenalin and so it goes on.

Also, about 1o days after I left the hospital, something similar occurred after a dally walk. At that time I even felt chest pain and pressure, and experienced a high heart rate and BP. Not as high as now though, my heart was much weaker. I did the same then, Carvedilol + Lorazepam, and was even checked with an echo at the operating hospital, due to the pain I had felt. Everything was normal.

This time I didn't intend to go to urgent care if the medications helped quickly, but it took a while and then when it went back up again, I decided to get it checked out. Nothing out of the ordinary was found, except the elevated HR and BP. I have a regularly scheduled echo in about a week. It will be good to verify that all is well this time too. It's been about 2.5 months since the last echo.