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What the hell happened to me?

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splodge2001

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Joined
Sep 7, 2016
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8
On NYE I took MDMA for the first time in 20 years, I'm 40. I thought it would be fun. Just like the old days. My life has been a living hell ever since and no one can tell me what happened.

I used my little finger (un-licked) to dip into a bag of MDMA and caught a little powder in the nail of my finger. I waited - maybe for an hour and nothing happened, so I went back, another finger nail full - nothing again. So I went back a third time and did the same thing. I have no idea how much I could have taken in total but I don't have long finger nails. I was fine for about two to three hours after the last dose. I wasn't gurning or super "out of it". The effects were mild. I felt mildly warm and friendly. I was dancing but not over heating.

I went home and was ok. I went to the bathroom - I noticed it was harder to urinate but not impossible. Then I got into bed and lay on my left side to go to sleep. Suddenly I felt my heart beating very fast. It was 2.30am and 2.5 hours after the last dose of MDMA. My heart seemed out of control. I tried to breath deeply but it didn't help. I got up. I wasn't hot. I did not have myclonus. I got into the bath to see if it would relax me. I kept feeling waves coming up through my body which would accelerate my heart. I found it hard to breathe, especially at the peaks of these waves. My heart felt like it was in a tight box. I felt pressure in my body. I thought my blood pressure must have been very high. I was very scared but did not call an ambulance because I was too ashamed. I have two kids and felt embarrassed. I decided to "ride it out".

I'm not sure how long I stayed in the bath but I have a heart rate monitor so I thought I should check what was going on. I got out of the bath and measured my heart rate and BP. It was 135bpm and 150/90. I took this measurement when I had passed the peak. It took about 2 1/2hrs in total for my heart rate to come back down to normal.

I put the experience down to the drugs and forgot about it until...

I had the same experience a week later whilst watching TV. No more drugs had been taken since NYE. Suddenly my heart rate shot up and kept getting faster. This time I called an ambulance. My breathing got tricky as my heart rate went up. I reached 130 bpm. I had an ECG in the ambulance and was told that I was in normal sinus rhythm and was having a panic attack.

Then it happen a week after that. Same thing - writing an email and suddenly my heart rate leaps and keeps getting faster. Hospital again. Normal sinus rhythm and they prescribed beta blockers. I had a further episode of tachycardia a couple of weeks later and the dose of beta blockers was increased.

I had made peace with the symptoms one evening but the following morning I woke up with PVC (Ventricular Ectopic Beats/palpitations) for the first time in my life. I went straight to A&E but my heart had restored to normal rhythm.

Since then I've had several episodes of palpitations (ectopic beats) and a couple of short bouts of tachycardia. I became extremely anxious after the 3rd episode of tachycardia and had to start taking diazepam and antidepressants. Unfortunately, the antidepressants caused insomnia so I had to stop taking them.

The ectopics are becoming more frequent and lasting longer. I've had them for 3 days in a row (6-10 per minute).

I'm really struggling to deal with it all. I went on holiday and was really stressed to be away from home. My life has become a nightmare.
I've had a normal echocardiogram and normal 24/48hr ECG. The ECG picked up a few Supraventricular ectopics and Ventricular Ectopics both singles and couplets.

I really feel like I need to understand what happened on NYE and subsequently. I've read that on average your heart beat speeds up by 30bpm. Mine went up by more than 60bpm. It wasn't a normal reaction to MDMA.

Was just reading about Coronary Spasms and MDMA. Could it have been that? The fast heart rate lasted around 2 1/2 hours though and went down gradually. Is it more likely to be Panic? I'm in London I've seen a cardiologist but no one seems to be able to tell me anything about the drug's role in this. Can anyone recommend a doctor with knowledge?

Thanks
 
splodge2001 said:
On NYE I took MDMA for the first time in 20 years, I'm 40. I thought it would be fun. Just like the old days. My life has been a living hell ever since and no one can tell me what happened.



Thanks
Click to expand...

May or may not have been MDMA

I do not know of any substance that can cause cardiac rhythm anomalies (weeks after the fact) like you describe -- oh wait ... adrenaline can

Panic Attack -- seriously that's all it is -- you think you took something that messed up your heart

BTW you seem like you are OCD/hypochondriac
 
I would be sure to learn diaphragmatic breathing and mindfulness, and hopefully as you begin to become fluent with mindfulness, you might be able to begin to tell if it is anxiety-like thoughts or an increase in mental activity that precedes these panic attacks/events, or if it is something postural that happens more when sitting down and hunched over and not breathing through the stomach properly (If you have bad posture I would be sure to correct that).

Regardless of whether or not mindfulness meditation helps with the cardiac symptoms it will at least help you in other areas, and will prevent mental issues developing with the stress.
 
130bpm isn't excessively high, especially on stimulants. In fact a brisk jog will surpass this in a typical 40 yr old. Don't forget the effects of MDMA (which we will have to only assume you had) lasts four hours, so an elevated pulse and bp is to be expected 2 1/2 hrs after dosing.

Everything you discribed sounds like anxiety/ panic attack. If cardiologists can't find any irregularities with your heart then it's unlikely to be any physical damage from a one night binge 9 months ago.
 
i've had similar (though not quite as dramatic) symptoms, completely unrelated to drugs — at a particularly stressful time. especially at evenings i noticed many ectopic beats and have palpitations, leading to anxiety. i had two 24h ecgs taken from two different doctors and both said that i had less ectopic beats than the average human (who apparently does not even notice; completely unlike me as i was sensitised to all these phenomena due to anxiety. also it turned out that most of the "ectopic beats" that i felt were actually perfectly normal sinus rhytm.
when i didn't have that kind of stress anymore, the symptoms disappeared. so it was mainly psychological.

another point is that there's not really anything the doctors can do to treat such a condition (when you think of it as a heart issue). all medications that can treat arrhytmias cause arrhytmias themselves. and because of this most of them result in an increased rate of serious complications compared to no treatment. so the only thing that can be done is the implantation of a pace maker, which is of course a serious procedure not done unless strictly necessary (i.e. if you had episodes of fainting due to skipped beats). but that's a rather extreme case not relevant to 99% of the people with such issues.
most of the time it's rather within psysiological limits (even if it can be quite uncomfortable).
so if your 24h ecg came back fine i think there's no need to worry.


btw: even though we aren't allowed to guess what you might have had, i can say that cathinones like methylone, mephedrone or their countless derivatives are typically much harder on your cardiovascular system than mdma (or even amphetamine). they often cause much stronger tachycardia and sometimes after effects like chest pains that take a while to clear up. though eight months would be way longer than anything i've heard of in this respect. my money would be on it being a psychological issue (with increased perception and anxiety concerning the function of the heart) only triggered by the drug experience back then.

another thing you could try (if you haven't already and if you want to visit your doctor again) is checking your electrolytes and looking for some common vitamin deficiencies. there are multiple ones that can cause palpitations (i think folate deficiency is the most common one here).
 
Sounds like Panic Attacks to me. I've suffered from them before. Are you on any other medications? How have you been since?
 
splodge2001 said:
Why do you say OCD/hypochondriac? I'm just curious.
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Because unless you already have a heart condition that you didn't disclose, to be so specific about so many possible cardiac conditions screams hypochondria
 
^^^ don't take the suggestion of hypochondria as an insult, OP :) consider it simply overthinking it, causing anxiety, resulting in physiological symptoms like raised heard rate etc. I feel very much the same symptoms you describe when I'm completely sober, simply from an anxiety/panic attack.
 
I see your point. My dad is a doctor. I've always been interested in medicine and I do like to try and understand for myself what I'm suffering from.
 
No, I'm not taking it as an insult at all. Just wondering what gives rise to the comment. It'll help me to understand.
 
The thing is, if it was a panic attack then it lasted a long time - 2.5 hours. And for the last 1hr/30mins I wasn't panicking. I was watching TV and just waiting for things to settle. My heart was still racing though.
 
I know someone who gets random bouts of tachycardia (completely harmless) that are very separate from their panic attacks, so that is a possibility, but I would keep an eye out for your mental activity/thought patterns leading to the heart rate increase, and I would still practice diaphragmatic breathing (valsalva maneuver if you so desire) and mindfulness to improve quality of life. It'll probably just take some time for things to calm down, I'd say give it a couple months. Also stress hormones can last quite a while and so even if you are mentally not panicking at that moment your body could still be in fight or flight long after your mental symptoms subside.
 
After reading this, I wanted to chime in to tell OP he his not the only one to experience this. Same thing happened to me almost 2 years ago exactly. I have done MDMA a handful of times years ago, and one night at a small dose seemed to change it all. I had my first panic attack, followed by months and months and months of a anxiety. I had always been an overthinker and would consider myself pretty intelligent, therefore I like to know all the answers, and if I don't I do research. Unfortunately the research just seemed to make things worse. I was for sure that this sense of nervousness I felt in my chest was a heart problem, even though I had been checked out. Eventually I became so focused on my heart that I began experiencing PVCs for the first time in my life. Terrifying if you have never felt them before BTW. So i dealt with that for months. Eventually, I had several months of feeling almost back to my normal self. Since then, I still have anxiety 2 years later. I have had bad days, god days, bad weeks, good months, etc. A bit of a rollercoaster. But I'm still very much alive and healthy. I had a theory that possibly MDMA can slightly speed up the rate in which a person will inevitably get anxiety if they are prone to the disorder. Most of my family members have it, and mine just hit me out of nowhere. Either that or maybe we have always been anxious people but never had physical symptoms until now. Sometimes I just hope that time will fix this, if MDMA did truly cause it. But if not, I do what I can to manage it. I workout daily. Eat a clean daily diet. and I recently started mediating. I've never taken an SSRI, but I do have a klonopin script. In which I might take 0.25mg once a week if I have a bad day. I try to manage my life without drugs because it makes me feel better since I have such a big conscious. So anyway, just letting you know there are others out there so you are not alone :)
 
Thank you so much! That sounds exactly like me. I think I'd been having a bad time before I took the MDMA - hence wanting to escape. I was wanting to go back to that teenager with no cares in the world.

I suspect that there was a pre-existing susceptibility and that MDMA was a trigger. I did have anxiety before but MDMA changed everything. I suspect that the hypothalamus is involved but can't prove it. Can you expand on what your symptoms were and what you experience now? I too exercise every day and eat really well - plenty of fish, legumes and tons of veg, porridge for breakfast. I'm thinking of trying meditation and neurofeedback.
 
A better question would be, what symptoms didn't I have? lol. I went through it all and still go through some new things every now and then. In the last 2 years, I thought I have had 20 different diseases, disorders, etc. A hypochondriac for sure. But chest pains were always common, PVC's, some short term DR and DP in the beginning, muscle tension up the charts, floaters, etc. If you look at the LTC long term comedown thread, you'll see most people have suffered the same symptoms. As of now, I still have the occasional PVC that I feel, which happens to be about 1 a day. It used to feel like hundreds a day. I have muscle tension, chest tension that somehow is also in my back. Some teeth gritting. And when I drink caffeine (which is everyday since I work for a supplement company lol) I feel lowkey anxious like I'm waiting for something or about to go somewhere if that makes sense. All in all, symptoms that I can live with, but still aren't my favorite. But compared to where I first was? Night and day.
 
CloudIX said:
A better question would be, what symptoms didn't I have? lol. I went through it all and still go through some new things every now and then. In the last 2 years, I thought I have had 20 different diseases, disorders, etc. A hypochondriac for sure. But chest pains were always common, PVC's, some short term DR and DP in the beginning, muscle tension up the charts, floaters, etc. If you look at the LTC long term comedown thread, you'll see most people have suffered the same symptoms. As of now, I still have the occasional PVC that I feel, which happens to be about 1 a day. It used to feel like hundreds a day. I have muscle tension, chest tension that somehow is also in my back. Some teeth gritting. And when I drink caffeine (which is everyday since I work for a supplement company lol) I feel lowkey anxious like I'm waiting for something or about to go somewhere if that makes sense. All in all, symptoms that I can live with, but still aren't my favorite. But compared to where I first was? Night and day.
Click to expand...

HPA axis dysregulation, which is why benzos work (klonopin)
 
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