Help Please. Questions. Inappropriate sinus tachycardia, others

Hello

40 year old active man here. I get this feeling
While I'm falling asleep sometimes I wake
Up fast like as if someone shocked me
And I feel my pulse race alitttle

Is it afib ?

I also had EKGS done that showed slightly
Inverted t waves but not always.

When my pulse is below 60bpm I feel
Better and have better EKGS than if it's 70bpm or above


My echocardiogram is normal with
Normal ejection fraction.

I have inappropriate sinus tachycardia

I take 25mg Metrpoholol twice (cut in half)
Sometimes . I take 12.5 olmesartan as needed

Thoughts advice suggestions?

How did you get the diagnosis of IST? It could be lots of things. It would be worth either getting a monitor from the doc, or buying one of the home monitors to try and capture the fast rhythm that you are describing. Without that, it would be hard to say. I will tell you that I am also beginning to investigate the IST and also have other arrhythmias, and there are some of us that may just have conduction system disease/malfunction. I am heading to Mayo, or somewhere else, for a consult for the new hybrid procedure for IST. Would need more info on your case, though, to give any input. What does your pulse feel like when it happens?

The hallmark of afib is an irregular pulse. An irregularly irregular rhythm, to be exact (this leaves out things like bigeminy, which is regularly irregular). So when you experience this racing heart thing, just feel your pulse for 30 seconds. Can you tap your foot to the beats? If you can, it's probably not afib. But if the rhythm is so irregular that you can't predict the next beat, that could be afib.

Yes, diagnosing afib really is that easy. You don't need to spend a dime or wear a device.

Agreed, you shouldn't really need to purchase anything when you can gently place your fingers against your carotid artery or your inner wrist and begin to sense the rhythm. It might be faster than you'd like, or slower, but the beat should be very close from beat to beat....lub-dub...lub-dub...lub-dub... If you can feel the pulses coming and going, and not with the same even interval, you are almost certainly fibrillating.

BBUUTTTTTT......(there has to be a but...) your physician, LPN, EP, Cardio will want to see you or have you go in for an ECG to get something definitive for him/her to chew on....to see. The benefit of most modern devices such as smart watches and cardio evaluators, like Kardia Mobile, is that they will keep a record of each time you assess your heart's rhythm, and you can take that to the bank...er...I mean...send it in to the physician or specialist nurse on the cath lab ward. When I did that, the nurse asked if I could upload my Galaxy watch's record and send it to her. I didn't know, but I found out right quick and did that...within ten minutes. The EP didn't want to see me, didn't need to because the image of the ECG was so obviously fibrillation that it was unquestioned. Didn't even ask for an ER ECG. Called me two weeks later and said he'd like another go at RF ablation.

In summary, you can/should be able to detect it yourself, maybe with some practice and experience. But if your EP/Cardio will accept at least an initial indication from a smart device, that gets you into line a lot faster than having to wait for a more formal assessment.