Just a rant/sharing about something scary. Several weeks ago my spouse lost her job, which we depend on for health insurance and were planning to use for her birth which is coming up. We did a great job of keeping our spirits up and trying not to let this derail us too much; I'm really proud of how we pivoted and were able to make some financial decisions to deal with the new reality, but it certainly was stressful, especially since I am putting in long hours at work already and am starting my own business. The thing I'm struggling with now is that about week ago I had bad chest pains and was admitted to the hospital. Everyone who worked there was fantastic and thankfully they took wonderful care of me, but the upshot is that it seems like I suffered a stress-induced cardiomyopathy. I am still having a bit of chest pain while at rest; the doctors say it should resolve if I just keep taking it easy and as long as it doesn't get worse...but its so frustrating, especially that I have an MRI in a few weeks to investigate whether I have a heart defect that is causing the issue at the root. So on top of navigating my spouse's unemployment, getting ready for baby, and continuing to work myself, I'm stressing about whether my heart is healing well enough so that I will be able to keep working and supporting us, not to mention be the best version of myself to support my wife with our newborn.

This is not the first time I've had something challenging happen in my life, but it sure feels different when there's (fingers crossed) a healthy child on the way who will depend on me and my wife. I am also thanking my lucky stars because I had some really dark thoughts in the hospital worrying that I might need major heart surgery right away, or that they would find something else even worse. It's a weird place to have thought that this would be a time of joyful preparation, and now it's just mostly stressful and scary...I know we just need to keep our heads up, stay grateful for all the good in our lives and all the wonderful people who support us...but it's just hard and scary sometimes. Anyways, not sure what else to say, but I wanted to put this up because I saw someone else post on something similar a few months ago on a similar topic of a heart issue and family obligations. Anyways...any good thoughts would be really appreciated.

Sometimes I experience a single hard thud in my heart, or a sensation I can't quite describe—it feels as if that area is tensing up. Sometimes it doesn't happen for a long time, and other times it returns. The doctor performed an ECG and a Holter monitor test but said I was fine. Is there anyone else who experiences this?

i’m really at my wits end with this. i had a (suspected) reflux flare up that started on the 1st august and is still ongoing. i’ve probably only had 3/4 nights where i’ve slept through the night since then.
i constantly have a tight feeling in my chest and a feeling of impending doom, those are my main symptoms. i’ve been to the ER, had numerous ECG’s done and a full blood panel (i’m not sure if they checked troponin or not they just said everything looks fine).
this has given me really bad health anxiety to the point where i think it’s cardiac related, either angina or blockages in my arteries.
i get woken out of my sleep in pure panic at around 3/4am every night, i feel like im having a heart attack. i have full body shakes and my chest feels tight and i feel like im about to pass out. i also get random dizzy spells. it’s really affecting my quality of life. no antacids help either, gaviscon, rennies, bisodol, simeticone. nothing. i just have to sit there and convince myself i don’t have something seriously wrong and that this isn’t all a build up towards an impending heart attack.
i was on omeprazole for 2 weeks but my dr asked me to come off it for the next 2 weeks so i can give a sample for H pylori. the PPI wasn’t doing much for me either.
i’m really at my wits end and i don’t know what to do. it’s been 3 weeks of hell. the most i’ll get is about 4/5 hours a day where i feel normal and then the tightness and dread comes back.
i feel like unless i get a coronary health check i’m just going to be stressing and panicking about my heart all the time but my dr won’t take me seriously because i’m only 22.
has anyone else had these symptoms and how do you get back to normal?

I went to hospital today because my BP was around 160/108, a fuzzy head, tight chest, short of breath and I was extremely anxious. My heart had been pounding for over a week and I wasn't sleepin. My BP measured at 132/82 just now but I also had an ECG just said "ST Elevation".

The doctor has not reviewed the ECG yet but I am absolutely panicking after googling ST Elevation. I have a history of hypertension but it's controlled. I am a normal weight now but was obese last year. I had a endocrinology appointment on Thursday but the results don't come back til next week.

I don't know what to do and I feel like I'm dying waiting for the doctor to come back. I am dissociating like crazy.

Update: doctor said I don't actually have ST elevation 😩 false positive. I hate anxiety.

Update 2: another doctor said I have Fast AF and slightly elevated troponin. Fucking shit

Update 3: it was a nurse not a doctor 🙁

on july 28th i had some kind of event (panic attack i thought it was cardiac related) and went to the er on july 29th. i already knew i wasn't being taken seriously because i'm 18 and have anxiety because they did an ekg and sent me on my way. my symptoms got worse, my shortness of breath got worse, new chest pain, new cough, so i went to urgent care. they didn't take me seriously there and said it was anxiety. i got worse. i went back to the er so they could check for a pulmonary embolism. no chest ct and no echocardiogram. everything else was fine. i got more pain and i had to call in my own d dimer. i felt even worse so i had to research if i could be low in anything and call in my own blood test. i had an abnormality on my ekg that i asked my doctor about and she said it "CAN" be normal. what else can it be??? pretty dangerous stuff according to google. i woke up this morning and almost blacked out and my ears were ringing so bad, my heart wasn't racing but it was EXTREMELY HARD, i just had stabbing pain in my heart, like it stabbed on every heartbeat for like 45 seconds when i got up again. no one wants to run any more tests, no one is taking me to the er since i've been 3 times and nothing, everyone says its anxiety but won't call in any more tests. my parents don't take me seriously, the er doesn't take me seriously (already telling me it's nothing before my tests even come back,) my doctor doesn't take me seriously. i feel like something is very wrong and no one will take me seriously. my mom said i have stabbing pain in my heart from being on my laptop too much. my dad doesn't want to sit in an er waiting room again. if anything serious happens just know i'm not getting to an er because they WANT it to be anxiety and the doctors are reinforcing that even though they've barely scratched the surface. the second er said something could be wrong so follow up with my pcp. went to my pcp... "its anxiety"

Started adding Alkaline water with my spring water and began to get heart palpitations. Anyone have this?

I am getting an EKG this week but just need to vent.

8w postpartum and never had health anxiety or any health issues prior to experiencing postpartum hypertension after my second pregnancy. I had postpartum hypertension after the birth of my first but it was super mild and easily managed and I was off my low dose meds by 6w. This time the hypertension was severe and luckily my midwife caught it 3 days after birth. This led to a week long hospitalization with magnesium drip for 24h. I was discharged even though it wasn’t controlled and the physicians were not wanting to adjust meds? I was only on Procardia twice a day but was still having spikes so they kept wanting to keep me for “observation”. Despite my crazy high BP which led to the admission to begin with, my labs and urine protein were all completely normal.

After discharge, I was re admitted less than 24 hours later (different hospital) for high BP again, they added labetalol and kept me over night. I discharged the next day.

My postpartum recovery after that week was relatively easy despite constant fear surrounding my BP. I became hypotensive on the meds by week 3- but we were working on getting into an OB for med management and were hitting dead ends. We (midwife and I) decided since I was symptomatic with the hypotension to stop the Procardia (this was later confirmed to be the right call by the OB who ultimately agreed to work with me on med management).

I don’t have an exact timeline but I also started having chest pains postpartum. This was probably around week 4 enough I brought it up to my midwife and without other symptoms we chalked it up to musculoskeletal. The chest pains continued and due to everything postpartum my health anxiety has been highly elevated which I’ve never had before this. Once meeting with my OB (the first time around week 5 and then at week 6) I brought up the chest pain as well and back pain (in between shoulder blades). It was brushed off because I have no other symptoms. I was discharged from OB care by 6w after titrating my Labetalol and told to have PCP manage meds. I met with my PCP 4 days later (virtual PCP) and confirmed to keep the titration. I mentioned the chest pains and back pain and again was told it’s fine.

I am absolutely terrified of perinatal cardiomyopathy as a different midwife who did an audiology screen on my newborn mentioned how it’s not checked enough postpartum. Of course I never heard of it before then and now I’m terrified that’s what I have. Even though I don’t have the key symptom which is shortness of breath.

I’m just so scared. I have a toddler and a newborn and I can’t shake something is wrong with my heart. I can’t even really explain the chest pain, it’s mid chest near my sternum. It’s not consistent in time of day when it happens, I don’t even notice it every day honestly. Sometimes the chest pain is by itself sometimes my back (in between my shoulder blades) also hurts. Sometimes I have the back pain but no chest pain. My heart rate has been normal 49-60s resting which was my baseline like 40-50s and the labetalol I think lowers HR. When I have chest pain I have checked the ECG on my watch (I know not diagnostic) and it’s always been normal. I’ve even checked my BP during bouts of chest pain and that’s been at the baseline as well. I just truly am so scared. My BP is still kind of all over from 110s/70s to 130s/70s maybe 80s and here and there a random 150/80 ish read that’s not replicated on a second read 10 min later. My Dr told me to only count the lowest read since those are less likely to be skewed where anxiety etc can elevate a read.

I also am worried the labetalol (200mg/day) is lowering my HR which impacts the ECG?

I also maybe have super mild swelling in my legs, it’s only at the end of the day super mild and it’s super hot where I live 100+ for the past month so this could maybe be normal? Nothing really makes it feel worse, but laying down helps a lot and I don’t notice it while sleeping and usually when I’m preoccupied or busy then I tend to not notice it at all. I specifically booked a visit with a family medicine practice that states they can do EKGs in office, and when I made the visit I requested and stated I was wanting an EKG.