What Causes Anxiety While Suffering From Head Pain?

Posted on Thu, 20 Jul 2017

Question: I had an episode of feeling my heartbeat through out my body and in my head without pain while pulling weeds. I have had a full heart workup...stress test, monitor, plaque test that all came back normal one year ago. I do however have anxiety from perimenopause. It was a bit concerning.

Answered by Dr. Ilir Sharka (12 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
I would recommend as follows:

Detailed Answer:
Hello!

Welcome and thank you for asking on HCM!

I understand your concern and would explain that your symptoms are not indicative of any serious medical disorder, including any heart disorders.

You should know that during physical activity and anxiety the sympathetic nervous system is activated, causing increased circulating levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline, leading to increased heart rate and blood pressure values.

This could be the cause of the feeling of heartbeat throughout your body.

Your last performed cardiac tests are very reassuring that nothing wrong is going on.

I would just recommend avoiding straining physical activity and caffeine in the next days.

If the problem persists, I would recommend consulting with your attending physician for a careful physical exam and some tests:

- a resting ECG
- a chest X ray study
- complete blood count for anemia
- thyroid hormone levels for thyroid dysfunction
- blood electrolytes for possible imbalance.

If all the above tests result normal, you should consider anxiety as the main cause of your complaints.

Hope you will find this answer helpful!

Wishing good health,

Dr. Iliri

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar