I often like to highlight athletes, celebrities, and other famous people on my blog who suffer from heart palpitations. Mainly I like to do it to show that we're not alone. And that even the rich and famous get these pesky misbeats. And even the healthy and extremely fit, get the dance, too. Most recently I saw that Mardy Fish, a highly ranked American tennis player was extremely bothered by heart palpitations and even got a cardiac catheter ablation procedure to correct the faulty wiring in his heart. USA Today Sports covered his story online - Mardy Fish on Mend, Ready to Take on Wimbledon. Basically, Fish like so many of us sufferers, thought his heart might stop and rendered him unable to sleep
alone for weeks. Even after the ablation, Fish "hasn't completely shaken the anxiety it caused." Oh, so true. That anxiety that accompanies heart palpitations is so hard to shake. With time, however, you can learn to accept that heart palpitations in and of themselves aren't dangerous. It took a long time to reprogram my brain to not freak out every time I got a pvc. Most of the time now I do a pretty good job of calming myself down and not working myself up about them. So Fish, you may not have won Wimbledon, but you certainly can win over the fear of your heart arrhythmia.
Post script: I thought it was very interesting that in the article it links to another one written about Fish recovering from a "Scary Heart Ailment." It's precisely language similar to that which gets people so freaked out about heart palpitations. I always wish they would give some reassurance to people that might suffer from something similar.
