Anyone with Tachycardia?

just curious. how old are you? maybe stay away from working out until it goes away? what does your doctor say?

Why can't it be controlled in the meantime? I also had tachycardia due to an autoimmune disease, but I was put on beta blockers while we were getting everything else under control. I wasn't allowed to do anything more than take a leisurely walk until my heart rate was within a safe range.

I also have Graves disease, am 28, and am on methimazole. Are you me?

You really should be on a beta blocker like propranolol. It's dangerous to maintain a resting heart rate that's that high. I was diagnosed 2 years ago and now I'm maintaining good thyroid levels with the methimazole. I was on propranolol for about a year and, while I was on it, my endocrinologist didn't want me exercising AT ALL. I wasn't allowed to do anything more than go for walks and he didn't want me to change my diet while things were settling. It was tough, but I enjoyed not dying...

He said it was too dangerous with the high heart rate. I suggest asking your doctor about trying a beta blocker and whether exercise is a good idea right now.

So, before I was diagnosed, I unintentionally lost a bunch of weight - somewhere in the area of 25lbs. 25lbs for me was a lot. I looked sickly. I had to be eating like 3000 calories/day, but it's part of the disease. A lot of what I lost was muscle. My legs would burn from walking up a single flight of stairs, not to mention being out of breath from the high heart rate. I even starting having trouble swallowing because my body was just eating all my muscles.

Once my levels starting coming back to normal, I gained back that 25lbs (plus another 5 or so, just for fun...), but it was mostly fat, so I looked heavier than when I had more muscle. It wasn't a good time looking so big, but I was physically feeling better. Graves can really take a toll on your body.

My endo describes me as an ideal case, and I would say it took about a year and a half to "normalize". My methimazole dose hasn't changed since May (I think?). I started out 2 years ago with 30mg/day and now I'm down to 2.5mg/day. My endo is hoping we can get me into remission, but we'll see what happens.

I was on propranolol for just about a year. It's something you have to be weaned off of, so once you're on it, you need to keep taking it until you work with your doctor to come off. It was hard to do cardio while on propranolol. It's supposed to keep your heart rate down, so I wasn't able to get my heart rate above about 120bpm. It was awful, but better than having a resting rate of 120 (or sometimes 150-170 in my case).

Once I came off the propranolol and got the go-ahead to exercise (I also had an ECG to make sure my heart wasn't damaged by the high heart rate), I started running. I wasn't a runner before, so this was completely new to me. Within 6 months, I went from couch to running a 5-mile race. At that point, I decided I was close enough to 100%.

chichi2130 wrote: »

You really should be on a beta blocker like propranolol. It's dangerous to maintain a resting heart rate that's that high. I was diagnosed 2 years ago and now I'm maintaining good thyroid levels with the methimazole. I was on propranolol for about a year and, while I was on it, my endocrinologist didn't want me exercising AT ALL. I wasn't allowed to do anything more than go for walks and he didn't want me to change my diet while things were settling. It was tough, but I enjoyed not dying...

He said it was too dangerous with the high heart rate. I suggest asking your doctor about trying a beta blocker and whether exercise is a good idea right now.

^^^^^ this. I took propranalol immediately after my diagnosis until they addressed the Graves' disease and lowered my heart rate. I hope you get things addressed soon

Also a 28 year old with Graves disease that was diagnosed around the end of August. Freaky

Please ask your doctor about taking a beta-blocker. It's not for forever, but it helps protect your heart. A (resting) heart rate that high can damage your heart if its left that way. I was also put on a beta blocker (toprol first, then switched to propranolol which worked better for me).

I was also instructed to do no exercise more strenuous than walking; if I swam, it had to be very very gentle but my doctor preferred that I did not. He told me exercise while my thyroid levels were so high would put me at risk for heart failure (weakened heart muscle). When I was briefly on methimazole, the exercise restrictions were really only going to be for about 2 months until the methimazole had brought my thyroid levels to normal. After that I was going to be able to exercise even though he thought I would be on methimazole for about a year or year and a half.


However, I had a serious reaction to methimazole after a few days so I had to take radioactive iodine for treatment instead. I had that 4 weeks ago, and am feeling normal now and expect to be hypothyroid in the next 2 weeks. I'm actually weaning off my propranolol (hope to have my last dose tomorrow night!) and will probably start Synthyroid after my next set of labs in a week and a half. I'm really hoping I'll be cleared for exercise by my doctor then as well.

I didn't have any special instructions on my diet though.

Good luck! Graves sucks, but you can get through this.