Anyone have experience with Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia?

[Butter]

It looks like my 15 year old daughter has inappropriate sinus tachycardia.  Several times a day for absolutely no reason her heart rate skyrockets causing shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness, and sometimes chest pain.  Her heart remains in a normal sinus rhythm the whole time, just way too fast.  It's not dangerous, but it is annoying.  Her cardiologist put her on a low dose beta blocker and she has to continue wearing the Event Monitor for another 4 weeks to see how the medicine affects her heart.

 

Does anyone have any experience with Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia?

[Shahrazad]

I do but I doubt I'm much help. My doctors are a bit torn on the cause at the moment and I had one abnormal EKG among the other regular (sinus tachycardia) ones. They've been saying it is dysautonomia because my HR goes up by a lot when I stand up but they're also thinking SVT on top of that because sometimes it randomly jumps crazy high (often when I'm asleep and it will wake me up from sleep). I have an appointment for some more testing and they want to put me on the event monitor as well and then decide about medication. I hope your daughter feels better!

[Scarlett]

I have never heard that term, but I have random big jumps in heart rate. My bp remains fine....the highest I was able to capture was 191.

 

I have linked it to drinking ice cold drinks......sometimes it happens with no ice cold drink...but often when it happens I am drinking an iced drink. It doesn't happen when I drink wine ( never chilled) or coffee, or water without ice.

 

My older cousin spent weeks in the hospital with the same problem and no answers. So I have decided to not worry about it.

 

I can't link it to stress at all. Usually I am sitting quite relaxed and feeling fine.

 

And that is all of the anecdotal info I have on the matter. :)

[sassenach]

A friend and I were just discussing heart rhythm issues. He has SVT that kicked into crazy high gear with tons of premature beats. I had A Fib with tons of premature beats that also seamed to suddenly increase. I chose to do cardiac ablation, which was successful. He chose to do beta blockers, which weren't very effective. He really doesn't want to do the ablation. About a month ago, his dr suggested trying high dose magnesium. Within a day, his heart was completely back to normal. He's taking 675mg a day. He's still on the beta blockers but he plans on attempting to ween off.

[Wishes]

I have it. I think mine is related to stress although sometimes it just happens. No meds. It helps if I lay down, that's usually the only thing that works. When I was younger my mom use to put her hand over my heart. I think that helped because I would feel less anxious. Most convert within seconds/minutes. I've had a few last for 30 minutes or so. I find that I feel that I'm short of breath, but it's not actually true. It's the racing heartbeat that makes me feel that I need to gasp.  It's annoying but it doesn't actually harm me. 

[bolt.]

Both my mom and my mil have it.

 

Mil's is related to stress (my opinion).

 

Mom's is related to low frequency sounds, like thumping bass in music, or photo copiers in offices. She can control it if she focuses on the sound, but has heart-rate symptoms if the sound is ongoing but she isn't really aware of it.

 

Docs' say of them is in any danger, unless mil adds a panic attack to the heart-rate symptoms and passes out from hyperventilation/etc. (If she passes out, her breathing will return to normal, but she could be hurt in a fall, or pass out somewhere she wouldn't be cared for, etc.)

 

Both are advised to simply stay calm and wait for it to pass, reminding themselves that these symptoms aren't doing them any harm.