Struggling with fluttering & vibrations in chest

Hello no more panic, I'm looking to see if anyone is experiencing or has experienced anything similar to what I'm going through at the moment

I'm currently going through a bad patch of anxiety. Around 7 weeks ago I started getting what feels like palpitations in my chest, these would last a few seconds then go away again. I was switching medication from Fluoxetine & Quetiapine over to Sertraline to reduce the overall number of tablets I was taking. I also take Esomeprazole and Propranolol for reference. Due to the change in my medication I assumed that these palpitations may be normal.

A week or so after they started the vibration/fluttering became more intense and would last much longer before disappearing, in my worst episodes it feels like my whole chest is vibrating/shaking. I monitor my obs the best I can at home during these and my pulse is never higher than 75bpm and my Blood pressure is also usually around 120/75 which are both good, generally my resting heart rate would be around 60-65 but as I was experiencing all this I have put it down to stress/anxiety raising my heart rate slightly - important to note that 75 is still a perfectly fine heart rate (I'm a 32 y/o male)

Eventually my anxiety wins and I take a trip to the emergency department one evening, my stats were slightly raised but not by much. Most importantly they performed an ECG on me while I was actually having these strange sensations, the ECG came back clear. Very quickly these sensations subsided and almost vanished for around a week until they came back again.

At the moment I've had 4 weeks straight of these sensations, the episodes are now lasting hours instead of minutes, aside from the panic and feeling rubbish from worrying about the sensations I hadn't had any other side effects until today. I have had two GP visits and all general observations and examinations during these have been fine.

The working theory is that Sertraline hasn't been working for me at all (i'm up to 150mg per day) and my bodily sensations are all due to the stress and anxiety generated around essentially being unmedicated. The plan is to switch my medication back to one that has worked reliably in the past to stabilize my anxiety. I don't 100% believe that this is anxiety that's happening but I do also have a lot of evidence to suggest that it isn't anything heart related. Has anyone else experienced anything similar?

Hello ! I have experienced this before. In the past I felt a vibration in my back, my legs, my whole body, my jaw everything just felt like it was shaking during a really stressful time. I was freaking out about something else when I started having these sensations and it totally shifted to the sensations and I stopped worrying about what I was wearing about before. I do tend to think it’s anxiety as I feel better now several weeks after kind of letting go of the fear that it’s something bad.


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Thank you for the reply, if anyone was wondering the sensations have started to subside now and are not as severe or intense when they do appear.

I was advised to switch from 150mg Sertraline straight to Fluoxetine 20mg by my GP, instead I have reduced myself to 50mg Sertraline and will restart Fluoxetine tomorrow, I felt like tapering myself would be safer than just doing the straight swap.

Yes let us know how it goes


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Originally Posted by Lblue

Most importantly they performed an ECG on me while I was actually having these strange sensations, the ECG came back clear.

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This was the most important takeaway from your post.

If your sensations were heart related the ECG would have picked them up. Palpitations would absolutely show on a heart monitor or ECG if they occurred while the monitoring was in progress.

Could the sensation be something else? Acid (GERD), spasm of some kind, or just anxiety related?

A clear ECG should really ease your mind (and it sounds like it did for a while).

Thanks, I try to use what I've learned from CBT to rationalize my sensations and symptoms - its just that some times the brain gremlins win.

I've spoken with my GP since my original post and they believe that what I'm experiencing is being caused by excess adrenaline from stress and anxiety - it will be some weeks yet before fluoxetine is in full effect so I'm just doing my best to stay cool and not panic when I get these sensations.