Are you seeing an LLMD ?

A friend of our's has a son who has had lyme for about 3 years, and experiences extreme palpitations as well.

The Toprol has mostly controlled the racing heart and the pounding, as well as chest pain and shortness of breath. I did have a full cardiac work-up first, to make sure nothing else needed to be addressed.

Hope things ease up for you.

As far as the heart skipping type feeling, I tend to get that at night to, when walking around (I'm pretty much bed bound), and the week before and a few days during my period.

In addition to the heart skipping, I've had supraventricular tachycardia, and I get very bad chest pain (again, worse at night and around my period). The cardiologist diagnosed me with coronary vasospasm although the most common cause, coronary artery disease, doesn't seem to be a factor for me (uber-low cholesterol, triglycerides, and a clean stress test).

I'm taking magnesium and L-arginine (per the doc) as well as usuing nitroglycerine patches. He didn't give me anything for the skipping because it lowers blood pressure, and I'm already having orthostatic hypotension problems.

Now, I've had all this heart crap before back in '92 and it cleared up until this year after a few months of IV antibiotics. So my question to you is, are your symptoms worse now that you are on antibiotics? Is there a way that you can control the symptoms and continue on the antibiotics? My stuff calmed down a little bit after about 7 weeks of doxy earlier this year, but are at their peak again now that I've been off Abx for a while (since Oct, could't tolerate the doxy any longer).

Also, don't know if you are a boy or girl, but if girl, pay attn to how the heart symptoms relate to your cycle. Maybe you could pulse the doxy during the better weeks and lay off it during the worse times.

I was given Toprol before on various occasions prior to being diagnosed and starting on antibiotics - my problem, like with durameter is that I generally have low blood pressure (although it can skyrocket when really sick) and either asthma or something like asthma - so betablockers will be tricky for me.

Interestingly, although currently I am taking Doxy - when I first got sick - I was taking Erthromycin which is when I first knew somthing was wrong and my heart was pounding.

It's hard for me to describe what I mean by what happens at night. It starts with the intense pounding - somehow, I sleep through this though - than, I wake up with either feeling like my heart has stopped or it was being squeezed. I am really weak when this happens - almost too weak to do anything about it - but I usually get up to take anything I can find (haha) to get rid of the feeling - usually this is magnesium and CoQ10 - I debate about waking my husband up (I'm a girl)to take me to the hospital. Honestly, I think I would have difficulty speaking (I feel that constricted) to tell him if I wanted to.

Before doxy - I was having a lot of cardiac symptoms - tachycardia, bradycardia, premature beats - flip flopping - and tremendous weakness. But for the first month - they were gone. But this night time thing is new and getting more intense as I've ignored it and continued to take the doxy.

My dr recently put me on sotalol for the palpitations and tachycardia. However, it hasn't done much for the tachy. I will say it doesn't lower my BP, which is why he switched me from the atenolol I've been on for 3 or 4 yrs. [I have low BP too when on the atenolol.]

I'm thinking about going back on the atenolol, because I can't stand the racing.

As for babesia....all my heart problems began with babesia herxes.

brodius....I would not hesitate to have a full cardiac workup if I were you!

Wish I had an answer, but I don't know how erratic my heart would be without the toprol. It helps but to a certain point. Supplements wise, magnesium and CoQ10.

Good luck -
Cigi

Yes, you can get a cardio workup. Basically, it will probably just document your symptoms. Won't pin down the cause, result in any treatment specific to these symptoms, and don't expect most cardios to know anything about lyme. My experience with them was not good.

This all began abruptly five years ago with a recent tick bite, rash, and negative elisa. I think antibiotics are my answer but it was getting unbearable...also, there is always the possibility of other things causing it or that the lyme just aggravates it???? By the way, I had palpitations last night but none of the other stuff, after d/c the abx for 24 hrs.