Strong heartbeat

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Hello, the past few days since I've been eating more salt and sugar, after the first meal of the day and for the rest of the day my heart is beating quite hard and I can feel it much more than normal, I'm not sure if this is supposed to happen? It becomes really difficult to fall asleep at night due to this unnerving feeling. Maybe it's just a period of adjustment, I don't know. Did anyone else feel this?

My morning heart rate is around 46, but sometimes during the day I've measured even up to 75-80. I'm not taking any thyroid supplements, though I'm diagnosed as hypo (with a TSH of 6.19, T4 is still normal, not tested T3/FT4/FT3 yet, and also have very low Anti-TPO or Anti-TGaB antibodies (way lower than reference)).

Temps vary between 36.0 - 37.0°c (96.8F - 98.6F).

Thanks
 

cfhunter

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curious why you aren't on thyroid meds? A HARD or strong heartbeat could be cortisol related or due to low iron.
If you have that high of a tsh I would investigate meds for hypo.
 

Bones

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I had that condition for almost a year and it was very uncomfortable and difficult to live with. It resolved itself over time but I am pretty sure it was adrenalin/cortisol. How long have you been eating high carb? Would you want to write what you eat for breakfast here? Sometimes with my friends if they haven't eaten sugar in a while and they eat something very sugary, it can make them feel unwell and they have to back off the sugar until their body gets used to it and focus on fruits.
 

Dutchie

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Lately,I seem to have strong/fast heartbeat and feelings of anxiety/stress over the roof usually whenever I'm being able to go to the toilet to poop....:s (also sometimes when I eat)

Does anyone recognise this?

For the record...I haven't been taking my probiotics in a while,bc whenever I take a bit I feel so lethargic/depressed after eating. So,I'm really doubting if it's such a good thing that I'm not taking probiotics and probably causing even more major Candida/yeast overgrowth :(
I'm really wondering if there's truth in the GAPS theory regarding 'die-off' ......meaning that you actually have to feel like crap(especially mentally) in order to heal/get them out....
 

charlie

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I have been having this in stages, even now that I am not on any thyroid supplementation. I think its the body not able to adjust fast enough to the new thyroid hormones in your body along with being more sensitive to adrenaline. Each time one of these instances happens it takes 3 or 4 days for my body to adjust to it.

I could be wrong, but thats what I am leaning towards.
 

Birdie

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Bones said:
I had that condition for almost a year and it was very uncomfortable and difficult to live with. It resolved itself over time but I am pretty sure it was adrenalin/cortisol. How long have you been eating high carb? Would you want to write what you eat for breakfast here? Sometimes with my friends if they haven't eaten sugar in a while and they eat something very sugary, it can make them feel unwell and they have to back off the sugar until their body gets used to it and focus on fruits.
Yes, somewhere I remember the advice to ease into sugar slowly. By sugar, do you mean fruit? Fruit has a lot of benefits as the main source of sugar. I had to ease into oj slowly. And always have fruit balanced with protein.

Ray does say orange juice alone is okay, but I had to use it only with protein for months before I could tolerate it alone without rapid heart beat.
 
OP
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It's been 10 months now and I still have this. It's pretty obvious now that it's not going away on its own. I tried numerous things, dropping milk & orange juice, taking magnesium, potassium, more salt, less salt, all kinds of things. Since February I also get these horrible adrenaline attacks at random times of day. All my symptoms are worse in the afternoon.

Synthetic T4 helps eliminate the adrenaline but only mildly calms down the heart pounding. T3 does nothing.

The biggest change in my labs is a fall in T4 from 134 (when I didn't have this) -> 99. Latest T4 has been 108.

My only suspicion left is my low iron labs. I have a fairly low ferritin of 57 and my serum iron is 14.7 (should be around 20-25 for males). Unfortunately no previous values to compare to. I don't know if that could cause the pounding but I'm going to supercharge on the liver and take an iron supplement for a while and see if that fixes it.

My morning cortisol is also slightly above top range but that's probably due to the low thyroid as my environmental stress is very low.
 

Birdie

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Okay, so I'll tell you what helps me. I have to eat my protein with some fat before I eat fruit/sugar. And I have to eat slowly. If I don't do these things, I get the faster, harder heartbeat along with other symptoms. Like you, I tried all sorts of things before, finally trying to eat my protein first. I think I've been following Peat's ideas for 2 years, but for months I got the adrenalin type symptoms and kept testing one thing and another. It still happens if I eat fruit first and fast. :)

But I see your attacks are random, so this may not apply to you. But, when I think about it, sometimes my reactions seemed random also... Glad you reported back.
 
OP
MyUsernameHere
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Oh, they're not completely random, they always seem worse after meals, especially if I eat a lot of rice that really seems to stir it up.

The iron supplement doesn't seem to be doing much. Unfortunately, from all the theories I've exhausted, it looks like the answer to this is going to be good ol' hypothyroidism after all.

Things that support this view:
-this all started after my T4 labs turned significantly for the worse, shortly after I started the RP diet, so it's funny that I actually become more hypothyroid from this diet
-the severity of my symptoms follows a very well established circadian rythm that I experience without fail every day: GOOD in the morning, WORST in the afternoon (2-8 PM), PRETTY GREAT at night (after 11 PM). That, without a doubt, shows that this is hormonal (and I've found thyroid graphs which show the hormones going up and down in that exact pattern)


So my theory as to what is actually happening: After that sharp decline in T4, my body probably started ramping up adrenaline production to compensate for the low thyroid and my heart is being "driven" by the adrenaline, hence why it beats this hard. When it gets to its worst, the adrenaline surge is so huge that I can actually feel it in my chest, like a panic attack or being scared by something.

Now the only question I still can't answer is WHY this happened, right at the time of starting the RP diet, and HOW to reverse it, without going on thyroid hormones... I still don't know the answer to that one.

Birdie, do you take thyroid hormones and do they help you with this symptom?

And also, do you have any thyroid labs done?
 

jyb

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I'm hypothyroid, but since I started reading about RP I don't have any heart pounding anymore. I'm not sure what fixed it, but probably magnesium (topically - eg., a foot bath), gelatin, lots of salts (by the spoonful) with my OJ. You could also try bag breathing (that's easy) and light therapy.
 

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