posted
Did this start recently in relation to starting a new medication or antibiotic?
Do you have tachycardia always or just occasionally?
Some specific medications may cause an irregular heartbeat. For example, if you have long QT syndrome, you need to be cautious about taking macrolides, diflucan, Quinine, etc because they can prolong the QT interval of your heart rhythm and cause serious arrythmias.
Please describe your heart issues a little more in detail. Thanx
-------------------- **Eat Chocolate** Posts: 942 | From USA | Registered: Mar 2005
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heiwalove
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6467
posted
actually, right now i'm taking a break from lyme treatment and am not on any medication except psych meds (SSRI, and depakote). i'm mostly in remission, with only a few (usually mild) symptoms remaining.
tachycardia has been a problem for years, long before my lyme diagnosis; though i definitely have a feeling that it's lyme-related.
my heart races and flutters, and sometimes i'll notice it skipping beats. it hasn't caused me to faint or feel particularly light-headed, though.
klutzo
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 5701
posted
Dear Heather, 1. Ask your doctor for an echocardiogarm to rule out Mitral Valve Prolapse. 75% of us develop this, usually by the end of the second year, but many don't know they have it. The Echo is a short, painless, ultrasound test.
Be sure to drink as little as possible for 12 hrs. before the test, since a well-hydrated valve can appear normal, and many MVP's are missed because of this. It is important to know, since ABX are required for people with MVP when having any procedure involving blood, even teeth cleaning.
2. Magnesium citrate supplementation will alleviate many symptoms from this, and Mg deficiency is the cause of many of these symptoms, and maybe even the cause of acquired MVP. Lyme dumps our Mg. Take Mg in many small doses throughout the day, andtake it up to your level of bowel tolerance.
3. There are several types of and reasons for tachycardia in Lymies. You may have NMH or POTS....do a Google search for "Vanderbilt + dysautonomia" and you should get lots of info on this. There should be past postings here on both POTS and NMH you can also read.
Klutzo
Posts: 1269 | From Clearwater, Florida, USA | Registered: May 2004
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posted
tachycardia is a very dangerous condition... The heart is a pump. When the pumping rate is too high, the blood will puddle because it can't move at a high rate (150-200 beats/minute)
When blood puddles it will coagulate and form clots. These clots will move into the brain and plug up the brain blood flow and thus you have a stroke....
There are two ways to deal with this. You need to see a good heart doctor not a GP...
1. medications.. a. Cartiaxt 240mg a day. b. coumadin (blood thinner very tricky med. dangerous if not done with a heart doctor)
2. There is a procedure that "burns" the interior of the heart where the "timer" is located. About 50/50 effective.. Last resort type..
I didn't believe tachycardia was serious until I had a stroke. My left side went numb from leg to arm. I was lucky and fully recovered because I was in a heart trauma center and they knew what to do to reverse the damage. It has to be done quickly to be able to recover..
Now I take my meds religiously and am doing ok. I will be on the meds for the rest of my life
Good luck...
Posts: 192 | From Phoenix, AZ | Registered: Apr 2005
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heiwalove
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6467
posted
thanks you guys.
klutzo, do you recommend a particular brand of mag citrate? about how much do you recommend, how many times per day, and does it matter if it's taken with your without food? is it in pill or liquid form?
tj33, wow, that's really scary. can i ask how bad your tachycardia was? what was your resting pulserate? also, sometimes i have trouble telling the difference between actual (physically-caused) tachycardia and a fast pulse rate caused by anxiety. i think i may have both, because when i notice my heart racing of course i get anxious, and vice versa.. any thoughts about this?
also, have you tried beta blockers and did they help?
posted
I'd like to know the answers to those questions too!
I take atenolol for my tachycardia. It surfaced during treatment for babesia. Maybe the quinine didn't help, huh?
I've always known I had MVP...or at least I was born with a heart murmur.
Now I have MVP with moderate regurgitation.
-------------------- --Lymetutu-- Opinions, not medical advice! Posts: 96239 | From Texas | Registered: Feb 2001
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lymie tony z
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 5130
posted
Yep,
this is quite common with lyme. Never had an issue with my heart prior to lyme.
It was weird...I would let folks feel my pulse and it would actually stop beating for about eight counts and then start again...
I think some antibiotics may have exacerbated the problem as some affect nerves or synapse of the brain just like the chetes....
Or maybe it was just the chetes...
But I did notice an increase after IV ceftriaxone and clindamycin.
I'll have to try the mag again and see...
I know when I did Ketek for awhile...I had some tightness around the heart slight pain and shortness of breath...
silly me...I thought it was killing the chetes!?
Who knows...cuz about a month after the Ketek the fluttering stopped quite a bit???
The echo/cardiogram was the only test that found the mitral valve regurgitation.
I was told by several ducks not to worry about it!!!
I think rather than it being a sticky valve due to buildup of cholesterol or blockage stuff...it's again just another one of the nerve issues we all have...
Only this twitch is on that valve!
I've had it and lived now for eight years so I'm not too too worried about it causing any complications.
But do get it checked out. Don't let it exacerbate your anxiety...just know that a whole lot of us get it and are still here!
So relax dear....zman ;)PS
Recently I got put on betablocker and diabetes meds...they seem to not have an effect at all.
-------------------- I am not a doctor...opinions expressed are from personal experiences only and should never be viewed as coming from a healthcare provider. zman Posts: 2527 | From safety harbor florida(origin Cleve., Ohio | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
I think I have had the problem a long time. It didn't seem to bother very much until I got into a stressful situtation or got upset because I did something wrong. Then sometimes stress would not trigger it..
The heart would speed up and I would get faint. I would lay down and the heart would return to normal after about 1/2 to 2 hours... My heart would flutter skip beats then it would beat very fast...
I worked out at a gym and I wore a heart rate monitor. I never let my heart get over 130. Then one day the heart would not drop under 160 and would go over 200.
I thought something was wrong with my monitor... I bought another monitor and it did the same thing.
Soooo, I had a problem. I mentioned the problem at my next duck appointment. She did an electrocardigram and said I had a problem. She sent me to a heart specialist.
I didn't think it was a serious problem. The heart doc wanted me to start coumadin and I didn't want to as coumadin is a dangerous med.
You have your blood tested every 2 weeks or so. If you get the wrong levels you would have nosebleeds. So he had me on aspirins to thin the blood.
This went on for a month or so. The heart rate speed and flutter was getting worse.
Then one morning I woke up and my head felt like something was driving a railroad spike through my head. I never felt pain like that before.
I started to head to the bathroom and my left leg would not work. I fell and couldn't get up. My wife heard the noise and got me into the car and we headed to the ER.
They said I had a "mini" stroke. If that was a mini, a full stroke must be horrible....
The Hospital had a heart trauma center so I spent a week there. The clot was small and finally passed after a week of god awful headaches. The kind that you would ball up and bite a towel to help with the pain...
The tachycardia problem seem to get worse as I aged. In my 20s,30s, and 40s it didn't bother. I was 64 when I had the stroke..
My wife had breast cancer so I was under high stress for about a year. She survived the chemo treatments, one good thing is the chemo killed the lyme and the cancer is gone. 14 (one a week) months of chemo and 14 days of radiation did the trick...
They used a chemical that was like a nuke. She could only take 2 treatments. Her hair and finger and toe nails came off... I think that was what killed the lyme...
I believe that someday a treatment like cancer chemo will be the sure cure for lyme....
This stress I believe is what triggered the stroke. But that is just a guess...
I take coumadin every day 5mg 3 times a week 2.5 mg 4 times a week. Coumadin is rat poison. It kills rats by thinning their blood too much.
In humans it is a blood thinner also. But the trick is to not let the blood get too thin... Other wise you get nose bleeds or if cut you bleed like a stuck pig or die..
The Cartia XT regulates the heart where it will beat properly. Now my heart monitors work properly at the gym... I have had no problems since.
My advice to those that don't have tachycardia too bad is to avoid heavy stress and take an apirin every day to help thin the blood so it will pump easier.
But only if aspirins don't bother you.. Plus avoid foods and drinks that cause a fast heart beat...
Now I drink coffee, tea and regular Pepsis, but no alcohol.
I avoid veggie cooking oils (transfats). I do not take cholesterol drugs (too many bad side effects). My arteries are clean as a whistle so I don't worry about cholesterol...
Tj
Posts: 192 | From Phoenix, AZ | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
This is my biggest complaint and the scariest. I had beta blockers for a couple of years to control this - before I was diagnosed with line. My resting heart rate was 160. I was in cardiac care for a while but they couldn't figure out what it was. They said it must have been a virus.
Anyway, several years later and my last attack was 6 weeks ago and it lasted for a few days. But the resting heart rate gets to 100 max. I've had echo, ekg, ultrasound, heart monitor - they always come up cleam - scary though.
The ones that take your breath away freak me out. Today, I can't sleep on my right side or the palps will bother me.
BUT YOU SHOULD GET THEM CHECKED OUT. You don't want the tachycardia to go for too long.
Posts: 298 | From Maine | Registered: Jan 2004
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heiwalove
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6467
posted
thanks everyone.
yeah, it can be scary. generally i don't get attacks (though occasionally i do) -- but my resting heartrate is almost always over 100 bpm. frequently it's in the 120s. scary stuff.
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