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[JoannFran]

Hi everyone

I'm having a really rough time recently.  I've posted in the past about my worse symptom being anxiety and the jittery nervous feeling.  This manifests as heart palpitations, ectopic beats and a general uneasy feeling in my heart.

I'm 49 and perimenopausal.  I'm on 100mcg evorel and 100mg utro vaginally.  and testosterone.

I've never felt 100% well on the HRT and the anxiety has never completely gone.  There have been periods where it has been better.

Anyway, i decided to try to reduce the estrogen patch a little to see if the problem was too much estrogen.  I cut a small amount off of the patch and have been doing that for a couple of weeks.  I think I'm down to about 85mcg for the past week.  Anxiety seems to be getting worse and I've been to the Drs today because my heart is all over the place.  Last night I had a low heart rate warning on my iwatch and dr did an ECG today and said I'm having lots of Ectopics (bigeminy).  I can feel them and they make me feel terrible.  Dr said they're not dangerous.  I have a follow up with my cardiologist soon and will discuss.  Have had all heart tests over past few years and no problems except ectopics.  I'm on propranolol (which dr thinks could be aggravating the issue (slowing heart down too much)).

Anyone else experienced this when reducing estrogen?  My meno dr told me to up it (to 125mcg) when I last saw her.  I haven't yet tried this.  I'm thinkng that maybe I should up to 100 again? 

Any advice greatly appreciated.  This is really starting to be detrimental to my mental health and my husband is amazing but I feel so bad for being a total wreck and feel like he'd be better off without me.

Thank you if you read all that   

[Angieyy]

Hello I just wanted to say I know how frightening it can be to feel your heart racing or palpitations Iv'e also had all the tests and everything came back ok except for the ectopic heart beats. Ive had blood test for heart failure, 48 hour ecg and a scan of my heart they said they couldn't see any reason for getting them and it wasn't dangerous.  I sure feels like it at the time.

It was so bad one day that I walked into a doctors surgery and asked to be seen they phoned an ambulance for me because my heart beat was all over the place and my Resting heart rate was 120bpm Its so frightening by the time the ambulanced arrived it had gone back to normal they did an ecg in the back and that was fine too that's when they sent me for all the tests.

Things I do now when I can feel it coming on or happening is splash my face with cold water lots of times. Yawn a lot it apparently resets the vagus nerve along with humming, breath through a straw or a pen and bear down as if going to the toilet. Obviously I don't do it all at once  ;

 They have helped me massively. I tell my self as much as the panic sets in that My heart is perfectly fine and it will pass whilst trying one or two of the above.

I have also watched a youtube video from a hospital where a patient has gone in with tachycardia and they get him to blow through a syringe and then lay him down fast, raise his legs and you can see his the heart rate dropping down.

Sorry I have no advise about it happening whilst taking hrt, I suffered from the above before taking hrt.

That's in my toolbox for when all else fails 

I think sometimes it's good to have some things we can try to help ourselves with I call it my little toolbox of tricks

[JS79]

Sorry you are going through this. Before I started HRT I was experiencing ectopic heartbeat and on 1 occasion went to A&E has ,heart started pounding and was 115 even though I was sitting still .
I think since I started HRT 2months ago I haven't experienced them much but occasionally normally just before my period I have a few days of them.
I may be lucky and mine don't last that long so I can just sit and wait for it to pass.
I'm sure someone said coughing could help.
I hope you find something that helps

[joziel]

I had all these symptoms and I needed more estrogen, not less.

I am now on 200mcg patches plus 6 pumps of gel and pretty much symptom free.

I'd strongly suggest you listen to your menopause doctor and increase estrogen, it's great you have someone who is prepared to offer that and you might need to go quite a bit higher.

[JoannFran]

Thank you all so much for replying to me.  I have an appointment coming up with my cardiologist tomorrow to discuss what to do as my life is a misery.  I get that they're not harmful but I think they are harming me as my mental health and anxiety is at it's highest.

I've put my patch back to 100mcg today and will give that a couple of weeks to settle and then I'll try increasing.  I'm such an absolute baby when it comes to changing any medication and end up convincing myself it's not working but when in reality it's probably the anxiety getting in the way 

Joziel - you're right, I am very thankful that I have a meno specialist that's prepared to offer that.  Do you mind me asking, do you have regular blood tests to keep an eye on your estrogen levels?  What are they on 200 patches and 6 pumps of gel?  I take it you have problems absorbing?

Thanks again!

[Kathleen]

Hello JoannFran

I am sorry that you are having these problems and I sympathise because I also had palpitations.
Thankfully they have gone now and even when I came off all HRT they didn't reappear.
 I also had the weird internal jittery feeling and that too has passed.

I hope this reassures you that these distressing symptoms seem to burn themselves out, though I appreciate that others may appear. I remember an MM member saying she could hear her heart beating loudly when she was in bed at night and it frightened her. I had exactly the same experience but strangely I found the beats quite comforting.

I hope your appointment goes well tomorrow and please update us if you can.

Wishing you well.

K.

[joziel]

I was last tested on 6 pumps of gel (no patches) at 330pmol.

Since then, the 200mcg patches have been introduced in the last couple of months and I have bloods booked for 2 weeks time. I don't know, at this point, what the levels are - but there has been a huge improvement in symptoms.

[Gnatty]

I think heart palpitations that are hormonal are often caused because of fluctuations in hormonal levels. So you may not necessarily be too high or too low but are fluctuating. And of course every time you change your dose you can expect therefore palpitations while your body gets used to the new levels. Hope that helps x

[flo69]

I'd try tibolone if you can.
I never felt the usual HRTs ever helped me, they are so up and down with the constant changing to and from progesterone.
They say all HRT including tibolone is only for postmenopausal women, but it seems your GP is willing to prescribe it to you in perimenopause, which they all ought to do imo.
Tibolone works really well for me, I don't feel like a crazy person any more and my sweats are gone, it breaks down into the building blocks for the three main hormones and our bodies do the rest, in many ways it's more natural because the hormones are made by the body instead of fake ones being introduced as other hrts do.

My body doesn't respond well to having fake hormones introduced, taking tibolone instead enables my body to make it's hormones in the usual way it always used to do.

[JoannFran]

Oh this is interesting.  I've never really heard of Tibolone.  I'll do a bit of reading up.  I've never been great on synthetic hormones either (could never get on with the pill or the mirena coil).  Sounds like it's worth talking about to my meno specialist.   Wonder if it works well for anxiety?

Thank you!