For several weeks I’ve been having severe palpitations, the kind that make you feel like your heart is stopping. Oh wait, quite possibly it was my heart stopping.
In an effort to determine what was causing them I started cutting out all the obvious suspects so out went my two morning cappucinos, which was like cutting off my right arm, then caffeine painkillers, which was equally hard given the amount of headaches I get in this noisy household, then I thought I’d better cut out the most obvious culprit, stress. Then I realised that with three small children at home all day that was not possible, not in any way, shape or form. So I decided on a different approach: at night I lay in bed and endeavored to think of the most stressful things I could, imagining the worst kind of scenarios, thinking of the worst thing I could envisage with the sole aim of making the palpitations worse.
This is why I shouldn’t be allowed to ever become a doctor: it would be just my luck to actually give myself a heart attack in the name of investigative medicine.
Nothing made any difference, except that I couldn’t sleep for several nights as I lay awake with my demons, having spent the first thirty minutes of the night imagining horrors.
So today I am having an ambulatory ECG, which is okay except for the fact that I look incredibly unsexy, what with all the wires hanging out underneath my sweater. I am also sure that I can receive extra-terrestrial signals on the machine strapped to my chest. Which will be quite exciting given that I am clearly not going anywhere in public today and I have way too much time on my hands.
And, of course, because I am most certainly a hypochondriac, when my bluff is called and they give me an ECG, I haven’t had a single palpitation.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah it’s probably the kids.
I’ve had palpitations in the past. I’ve never found a cause for them and they come and go for no obvious reason. I suppose I just wanted to say you’re not alone!
I did this too! It was no fun (I was in grad school at the time!) but provided reassurance that there wasn’t anything physically wrong with my beatin’ heart. Just palpatations. We did all kinds of tests then chalked it up to stress. Loverly.
Wishing you the best results on both the testing and the stress!
Yes, I get them too! You are not alone and I’m glad to see that I’m not, either. I’ve noticed them more since I’ve had my third child…perhaps they discontinue after the fourth?? You can test that theory first if you’d like!
You are my soul sister! I went through this exact same thing…but it was oddly enough before we had the kids. I got so bad one night I passed out on my way to the bathroom. I had to wear that God-awful contraption for almost a week. And it of course said I was totally normal. What do they know?!