Q: I am a 39 years old female. I weigh 109 kg and my height is 162 cms. I have some problems at the home front. One day when I was working out in the gym my heart rate showed 125 even before I had started. Normally, its 80-90 and within 3-4 minutes it rises up to 144. I was feeling very uncomfortable. I got out of the treadmill. This continued for 3- 4 days. I took Alprax 25 mg. I have high BP also. Is this something serious?

A:Heart rate will go up if you are tense. However if your heart rate goes up suddenly when you are calm and resting or the pounding in your heart stops suddenly instead of gradually slowing down then you may be having an Arrhythmia (irregular heart beat). These are not life threatening. The diagnosis is made either by an ECG when you are having symptoms are by a 24 hour Holter ECG recording. Note that many of the touch heart rate indicators on the treadmill machines do not give a correct heart rate (in case that is how you knew that your heart rate had increased).