Heart palpitations, worrying to much?

Question

So I went to the doctor a week or two ago, and the first time they took my blood pressure they said it was quite a bit high, but not overly high, which was probably because I was nervous at the time. Then they took my blood pressure again, this time in both my legs and arms, (while lying down) and said my blood pressure was normal. 

I've been having what seems to be heart palpitations. They started around a month ago, and I would usually feel a big giant heartbeat when I was resting/sitting down or laying down on my left side, and this would scare me quite a bit. Now those feelings are gone now, but it seems like I can feel my heart pumping in my chest a lot of the time. I've also been feeling my blood pumping all through random parts in my body. Is all this normal and just caused by stress? I had some trouble falling alseep last night, until about 4 or 5 am, because I felt my heart beat multiple times.

I'm a 15 year old girl that hasn't had any medical problems before. Also, this is probably me just worrying even more, but I have what I think is a splinter hemorrhage on one finger nail. It's just one tiny brown line on one fingernail, so it could be because of trauma to my nail that I don't remember. I did some googling, and I'm worrying even more because I found out this is a symptom of endocarditis, inflammation of the valves of the heart. Could anyone have some advice to calm me down?

Quantav · Answer

Hi GreenRose117, you are worrying quite a bit for someone who's 15 years old. I'm 38 and I've been living with pvcs since I was 20. They are nothing to worry about. They do get better and won't be noticeable if you reduce stress, get rest and find someone to talk to. I started to reduce my stress by just walking every day. I'd bring along and listen to an audio book or soothing, uplifting music for my 30 minute walk 6 days of the week. After a few months I was up to 60 minutes a day. If I don't have sleep or am under stress I notice the pvcs and then I get into the bad habit of paying attention to my heart beat, checking my pulse, etc.,

dolphin8808 · Answer

The skipped beats are you are describing (the HARD beat) is a very common finding and most people have those at some time or another. Some of us have them daily and feel every single one of them. The other things you are describing sounds to me like you are just very cardio aware and notice your heartbeat a bit too much.

Once we have skips many of us will focus on our heart, the beats, the skips etc and it can becoming consuming. As my cardio said, you need to learn to make your heartbeat "background" noise again and not something you focus on.

I am not familiar with splinter hemorrhage, sorry I cannot be of more assistance.

The best thing is that if you are worried, talk to your doctor, they are there to listen. But I can tell you that given your age, chances of anything being the matter is so very very slim for you. :)