Pity party over!/Chest muscles

[Sammantha]

Well i am done feeling sorry for myself and back on track...... My less serious problems have been diagnosed and will be taken care of soon "hooray..." I want to thank everyone for their words of encouragement, God knows i need it.... I decided to go with Hopkins because my sister in law's, brother in law works there and i could stay for free with them. I called my doctor, and he said that he already made a appointment with the man who taught him neurology and that he considers him the best neurologist on the East Coast, but if nothing comes of it then he will refer me to Hopkins.

Since i am on here i have a question?

I have been swimming a lot lately to keep my muscles from tightening and to get some excersize in since i am not working. Every time after i swim my abdominal and chest muscles are especially sore. Since i have started, i have awoken at night with chest pain. I was not out of breathe or gasping for air, but my heart would be beating so fast that it felt like it was going to jump out of my chest... Sometimes i am sweating when i wake up like this, and it takes at least fifteen minutes of wakefulnees to get my heartrate down and my body chill...... Do you think that this is because of my muscles or am i having anxiety attacks in my sleep? I feel like i have been smoking two packs of cigarettes for fifteen years or something! Excersizing is suppose to make you feel good, not worse! Write back, Sammantha

 

[planningguy]

Sammantha,

How often did you go swimming before you started using it to exercise regularly. Swimming is one of those all over body activities that seems to work so many muscle groups. I know that every time I go (especially if I take the kids) I find myself feeling a little extra sore in the shoulders, chest, and arms. Just a thought.

Your description of chest pain and racing heart rate do sound like anxiety attacks. About 8-10 months ago I was waking up on a regular basis with chills, light headedness, chest pain, and a racing heartbeat. After I got my B-12 levels balanced out, and started actively working on ways to reduce stress, they tapered off then have ceased altogether.

You might want to mention them to your doctor in case he or she would like to recommend something, or follow up. My GP prescribed Lexapro and Ativan. While I abandoned the Lexapro because it made me feel dizzy and groggy, and neither I nor my wife liked the personality changes, I found that Ativan helped me get a good nights rest when I was having the worst of the attacks. For me I found that I could almost predict when I would have an attack based on the nervous energy, or thoughts I was having before bedtime.

Hope this helps.

Robert

 

[CindyM]

I have those symptoms at night too, after a busy day. They put me on the treadmill to test my heart and it was fine but that night I woke breathing really quickly and my chest felt really tight. A Pulmonary function test showed that my chest muscles are weak. The quick breathing is the body's way of trying to correct your oxygen/carbon levels.

Maybe you should lay off the swimming until you get to the bottom of all this!

Funny thing, since I've had this new development, I have convinced myself that this is MG or some other autio-ammune thing, and not ALS as the locals at frist thought.

 

[olly]

hello sammantha/cindy

i have hypotention,my normal bp is around 100/60 but can suddenly drop to as low as
80's/40's.
when it drops suddenly i feel very ill,cold sweat(it can leave me wet through) and palpitations all in less than 30seconds and i black out.
this started a couple of years ago and had to go to a tilt clinic to see if it was caused by the autonomic nervous system that controls among other things the heart rate.
however they did a ecg first and found i had had a arrythmia so felt it was not good to do the tilt test.
i would advise both of you to get yourselfs checked if you are having these symptoms.
i have had problems in the past with the muscles around my heart going into spasms and had asthma like symptoms,chest/arm pain and unexplained heartburn that would be there all day,every day.
swimming works the cardio muscles,if your not used to it and do too much it may be overworking these,i had to give up the gym the time i was having heart muscle spasms.
sammantha....take the swimming easy,if symptoms persist get checked out.
cindy.........i don't think you exercise anymore so i would just advise to have it checked on.
take good care both of you.
caroline:-D

 

[mamaoftwo]

Chest pain and palpitations

Sammantha
You may have an undiagnosed SVT - look it up. Tachycardia causes your heart to race suddenly and sometimes for extended periods of time. But it can happen at rest too. I have it. Was diagnosed 6yrs ago. I dont take meds for it - I chose not to - and I now well familiar with the sensation. But it is scary at first. If my heartrate goes very high, I can pass out but that isn't a frequent thing, thankfully. I get chest pain and tightness but no out of breath feeling with it.
I have also had anxiety attacks in the past. First time was 15yrs ago when I was helping a friend deal with the loss of his mother. I guess I was more stressed than I realized and found I was gasping for air and yawning all the time. Turned out to be panic attacks. However, my heartrate was never elevated with the panic attacks and certainly not the way it is with the SVT.
I would get it checked either way. For most people SVT is just bothersome. My cardiologist told me that my biggest danger would be if I pass out crossing street and get hit by a car!

 

[planningguy]

Just a quick comment as a follow up (please don't construe it as disagreeing with any of the great comments so far). Although they are different for each person, an anxiety attack can cause a pretty elevated heart rate. I was wearing a 24 hour blood pressure monitor as part of a cadio workup when I had one at night. (like most automatic versions the bp reader also measured pulse). I hit the "event" button, and had a heart rate well in the excercise range (around 140 bpm if I remember correctly).

You've heard a handfull of possibilities, but everyone seems to agree that it would be a good idea to follow up with the doc.

Robert

 

[olly]

just want to say planningguy is right,there are alot of reasons for these symptoms so it needs checking on.
my doctor said my palpitations/breathlessness are caused by my low blood pressure.
when it drops to a low level the heart races/works harder to push the bp back up,a automatic response.
i was told to increase my salt intake to raise my bp.
take care.
caroline:-D

 

[Sammantha]

I have had the heart rate thing for awhile and like Caroline i normally have low blood pressure although it never has gotten below 90. Usually the heart thing happens just as i am drifting off to sleep, this is the first it is happening where it wakes me from a dead sleep.. I can however attest to the fact that the chest pain is due to swimming and weak muscles. I was feeling fine yesterday and went swimming, i got of the pool and my chest started aching so bad. It felt like i had a brick on top of it and the pain was felt all the way up my neck to under my chin. Even my nose felt like something was pinching it. I was having a hard time breathing, i really had to inhale hard. It took about 3-4 hours before i started to feel relief. The only time i have come close to the chest pain thing was after making all the beds in my house. I can walk and do other things and not have it, but swimming brings it on like crazy. Swimming is really good for me although i am really sore the next day, if my chest pain and all that go away i think i am still okay to swim... thanks for all your help

 

[Sammantha]

Ps... whenever i breathe in through my mouth i sound like i have asthma,,,, but i dont have it...

 

[CindyM]

I get that pain and shortness of breath after any mild activity. My stress tests and lung x-rays were fine so they know it is not heart/lung related. Today I am running out of breath in the middle of most of my sentences, and it feels like my baby grandson is sitting on my chest. I have an appointment with a pulmonary doc who specializes in neuro-muscular disorders so we will see what that brings.

Hang in and keep rested! :-D You can always go back to swimming after you solve this!

 

[awieleba]

sam~
I have had that feeling when falling asleep alot! I got more when pregnant. I learned after years of getting it that I would not have a heart attack or something. It has woken me right after falling asleep, mine has light headedness too. I just rub my chest and breath knowing it will go away. I have not had in awhile since I take a sleeping pill, I could have but dont know anymore.

I aslo had this really bad when I was in the hosp. They had to hook me to a moniter. I would have high bp then low bp. my heart would go down to 40 then up to 90. At night when it went to 40 the nurses would look in to see if I was still alive! and then I would get an arythmia or I dont remember what they called, but you could see it on the tape and I could feel it. I had every night and all night. THe cardiac doc came and saw me and check it out with echo and said it was just my autonomic nervouse system?

it did go away. Good luck with this! ***on side note, I have mitral valve prolapse. I thought/think that alot of my palpataions are due to that.

april