What resting heart rate is considered normal vs. worrisome?

54 beats is not at all worrisome. “72” is considered “normal”. If her resting rate was 80 or above, coupled with the elevated blood pressure, a doctor would be concerned. That is a bit overweight, but if the weight comes down the BP probably will too.

She is a bit overweight at 170 lbs, and standing height of 5’ 5”. and when the nurse took her pressure, it was 138/89 with a pulse at 54. So is it normal for her pulse to be at 54 even though she’s not fit?

Pulse rates of 65 to 75 are normal for female of good to above average health condition. The BP is elevated for a woman 26 to 31.

I’m not a doctor.

Technically the heart rate in “normal sinus rhythm” is from 60 to 100, so it’s bradycardia by definition. I don’t think that’s necessarily “worrisome” as a predictor of future health problems. Young and athletic types tend to run low heart rates, as do people taking beta blockers or certain other drugs. Low thyroid is another cause – there’s a long list of all possible explanations.

For peace of mind maybe they should ask their doctor about getting an ECG.

That sounds to me like she might be hypothyroid. Her blood pressure is high and heart rate slow, classic symptoms. Is she complaining about losing a lot of hair or having very dry eyes or skin? Being very tired or needng more sleep?

She needs to go to the doctor about the blood pressure if it is that high a couple times for days in a row. In my opinion, and I am not a doctor, if I were her I would not take blood pressure medicine until the thyroid results are back. Thyroid blood work usually takes a day to come back. If I were her I would not wait.

Yes. Her hair is very brittle, dry, and breaks very easily. Her thyriod has been checked in the past. She was diagnosed with Fibromyagia few years ago. She has very mixed symptoms. Doctors don’t seem to me taking her seriously. They prescribe antidepressants for her.

Dry brittle hair could be a sign of a bad diet, early hair loss, or any number of other reasons.
She really needs to see a doctor as people on the internet can’t diagnose her without knowing her full history.

She has been seeing many doctors for the past several years, to no avail.

@HULK Does she have her lab results? Has she been seeing an internist/GP or an endocrinologist? Internists tend to follow the lab recommendations for normal range, but there has been an ongoing fight in the medical community for what normal range should be for thyroid, many internists are unaware. Currently TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) is in a range of something like .5–5, but most endocrinologists think above 3.5 is getting too high (high means a slow thyroid). For myself by 4 and above I start losing a lot of hair, and become very symptomatic in other ways, higher blood pressure, slow heart rate, and more. I was at my GP’s office for something unrelated and asked her to throw in checking my thyroid and it cake back a 6 and she recommended no change in my medication, which is ridiculous. Another thing is just doing TSH is not enough when they test her, they should also check her T3 and T4 free, since she is having so many prolems.

It is very common for fibromyalgia patients to have a slow thyroid.

Also, I highly recommend they check her vitamin D level. I’ve been diagnosed with fibromyalgia also, which I don’t accept because my muscle pain does not really fit that diagnosis, and raising my vitamin D level has done wonders for my pain. My vitamin D blood level was extremely low and now I take very large doses. I want to emphasize that taking vitamin D does not help unless your blood serum levels are actually getting high enough. I have to take around 60,000 IU’s a week to get up into the normal ranges (I don’t recommend that much until she has it checked). I protect my skin from the sun, and food does not have near enough. I try to keep my level at around 45–50. Some recommend higher there is controversy about it. Normal range is something like 32–80, I don’t remember the exact range.

Lastly, she should check her iron and B12.

I am not one of those take mega vitamins type of people, I omly believe in it when there is proof of dificiency. Those I named are very common dificiencies in women.

Here is the list again so she can look at old lab work or request it. If any of her numbers are outside of normal or in normal but close to being outside it most likely needs to be treated. I would not say that about every piece of labwork, but for these items I firmly believe it.
Vitamin B12
Vitamin D
Iron
TSH
T4free
T3

In my opinion, again I am not a doctor, if her doctor has not tested for these in the past change doctors.

Also, I know it probably sounds like I am insisting this must be what’s wrong with her, and it could be these are all normal and something totally unrelated is wrong, but I would bet money at least one of these is off, and if I was resposible for her care I would insist on those tests, plus whatever else the doctor saw fit.

This has been over a period of several years. Everything blood levels hae been checked and rechecked.

@HULK I don’t mean to be a pain in the ass, but are you relying on doctors to tell you everything is ok? Or, are you, or she, actually looking at the labs yourself?

Is she seeing a rheumatologist?

She was seeing a Rheumatologist. However, that was years ago becuz she had no funds to keep seeing the doctor. The doctor gave her several possible causes for her symtpoms, but no absolute diagnosis. So now she is just hopping from one general physician to another because of the added symptoms and for pain relief.

@HULK I feel for her. Being a little sick, but not sick enough can mean no real diagnosis. :( I beg you to push her to double check they tested her vitamin D and her what her thyroid numbers actually were in the last few months if she has the tests. Do not rely on a doctor to say everything is normal. Does she have a bump in her neck that you can see when she swallows? That is a sign her thyroid is working too hard, her thyroid is enlarged. Has she felt spacey at all?

Also, I think someone might have mentioned this above, she might want to try a big diet change and see if she feels better. More whole foods (less packaged foods) veggies, less simple starches. I’m assuming with her weight her eating habits could be better, although she is not grossly obese by any means. My focus with diet would be getting more vitamins from foods with a better diet.

Also, high blood pressure and many rheumatic diseases seem to have a relationship to disturbed sleep. Either sleep apnea, or brain wave intrusions that are not normal during the stages of sleep. I have alpha intrusion when I sleep, which is associated with some rheumatological conditions, including fibromyalgia. Does she snore?

She’s very sick. Not a little sick. There’s a lot of things going on wiht her nerves, muscles, and joints.

I hope she finds an answer and there is a simple solution. Let us know if anything new is discovered.

@HULK To be honest with you, I have lost track of what you are asking here. It started off with a question about her heart rate, and has moved onto something about a person’s overall health and a bunch of other symptoms. I am going to sound callous here, but I am trying to figure this out.

Her resting heart rate is fine. It is a resting rate. If someone suspects a problem with the heart, it needs an EKG and a stress test.

The blood pressure is most likely caused by her being overweight. If she dropped 30 lbs, her BP would most likely be normal.

What is she seeing all these doctors about? If she has Fibromyalgia, it would describe all that is going on. It is a shitty diagnosis to be hit with, but it explains all that is happening. She should ask fro a referral to a FM specialist, and look into alternative treatments for addressing it.

@zenvelo The thing is, I had that diagnosis also, and almost all of this woman’s symptoms, but actually had an underlying thyroid problem and vitamin and mineral dificiencies, and correcting those underlying problems helped enormously. I am not saying the friend of the OP has exactly what I have, of course that is impossible for me to know, but I would not just accept fibro and deal with it.

Many many people and doctors for years told me how healthy I must be with my low resting heart rate, usually in the high 50’s, but, at night I felt like I could not get enough air and my heart arrythmia was so pronounced I felt like I was going to wake up dead. When I did a 24 hour heart monitor it showed during my sleep my heart rate was 46 at it’s lowest recorded time. Once I started thyroid medication my heart rate went back up into the 60’s amd I felt much much better, more oxygenated, and almost never notice my electrical problem with my heart.

I should add, when I first went to the cardiologist my TSH was normal. I often wonder if my T3 and T4 free were already moving outside of normal, they were not tested. I had one high TSH test a few years before I went to the cardiologist, but when it was repeated two weeks later it was normal. I guess I was in the beginning stages of things getting out of whack.

@JLeslie I don’t disagree with your assessment that a thyroid check should be done. But it seems the person the OP refers to has been around the block on tests expecting a different diagnosis. Fibromyalgia is a maddening diagnosis, (my ex was diagnosed with it) but the OPs friend seems to be looking for a diagnosis that can be quick fixed.

@zenvelo I didn’t get the impression she is looking for a quick fix, but you absolutely could be correct. The reason I didn’t perceive it that way is because the original question is just about her heart rate, so the OP seem to not be putting it all together, but for me every symptom counts. She has some sort of, I’ll call it, syndrome, going on and with the diagnosis of Fibro everyone is just going to dump new symptoms into the pot.

If she has been seeing this same GP a while it is time to change. Seeing him again probably won’t change anything. I understand there are financial constraints, so that is why I urge the OP strongly to actually look at the labs himself, or the pateint herself and see what has actually been testing. The OP so far has not specifically answered my question that they themselves have looked at the labwork.

Many many doctors are not convinced about vitamin D, but those doctors who firmly believe in it, believe in it because they prescribe, monitor it, and have many many patients who report dramatic differences. I know three people and myself that are ready to call it miraculous, although, I am not saying by a long shot it cured everything. Anyway, many doctors do not test vitamin D. There are conflicting medical studies regarding vitamin D. Many GP’s if TSH is nornal go no further, never do any sort of panel for thyroid.

Saying all that her GP might have done all those things, I don’t know, and I guess the OP doesn’t know, because he says an abstract, they have tested for everything, which means nothing to me.

Her rheumatologist likely tested for Lupus, Sjogren’s, her ESR, and other rheum markers. I had doctor test that stuff over and over, and every time I said that is not my problem. Lots of blood out of my body, and it is a lot that they draw for those tests, and I have flipping anemia problems. Forget paying for it all. Total waste after a while.

@Jleslie: She has not been going to many doctors to find a different diagnosis. Her Rheumatologist told her she had many things wrong with her, Fibromyagia was found a year after her first visit. The doctor says that’s not the only problem. The reason why she is still seeing other doctors is because she is experiencing additional symptoms that are not soley attached to FMS. The other thing is that she can’t afford her Rheumatologist anymore, so that specialist has not been able to evalute her new symptoms. She’s just looking for ‘pain’ relief for the time being. One of her symptoms is that her muscles swell, especially in the shoulder. That is not typical of FMS sufferers.

It was not my intention to stray for the original uestion. However, the responses promted my to make additions.

@HULK She actually has swelling? That is unusual. My think is I have muscle pain all over, every muscle, when I use the muscle briefly. I wake up just fine, no pain, but just the smallest amount of use back when I was at my worst and I had severe problems. If I gardened for an hour my muscles in my arms and especially my lower arm began to ache and my hands would shake so hard I could not hold a glass. I looked like I had Parkinson’s. Bit after an hour or so it would revert back to nor al. If I held a phone to my ear more than 5 minutes my bicep cramped so bad I was in agony, severe Charley Horse. If I walked for a couple hours my legs got shakey and I worried I might fall down. I used to work retail on my feet for 8–12 hours a day moving merchandise, this was a huge change for me. Anyway, it is every muscle. If I chew gum too long, Jaw muscle problems. The doctor would touch trigger points that fibromyalgia (FM) patients have and ask if it hurts. Yes it hurts, but it hurts any muscle you poke on me. I went toa neurologost at one point and he told me I was normal and I should exercise more. At that point I exercised regularly. I had not been exercising for a while before that and peope told me to exercise and build up muscle strength. I can tell you exercising did nothing for my pain, exercise risks pain for me. I did get a little stronger again though.

Story about vitamin D: I had started taking it, and correcting my thyroid numbers with meds, and increasong my iron levels with supplements, all at once. I began to feel much better, but doing everything all at once who knows exactly what is helping what. I truly believed my thyroid was the biggest problem. As I felt better my doctor and I decided I would stop taking the prescription vitamin D, because I don’t like taking hige doses, and go back to OTC 2,000 IU daily to maintain the levels I had acheived. Maintanance v. raising levels. At about the 6 month mark I had deteriated, could not get through a zumba class, much of my pain had returned. We ran several tests and the D was very low. I went back on D, now with everything else was constant, and once again returned to feeling much better. So, I finally narrowed down D was vital for me.

Does your friend avoid the sun? Is she very pale if she is caucasian? SPF in lotion and cosmetics and wearing clothing block vitamin D absorption. Dark skinned people also have great risk of D dificiency if they are not in the sun a lot, and they need to be in the sun longer than fair skinned people for vitamin D. I really believe maybe I pushed off or avoided MS, Parkinson’s or some other neuromuscular disease diagnosing my D dificiency, but that is not proven by science. However, in the US, MS is clustered more in the states in the upper midwest which lack son, and the midwest back in the day was the goiter belt, which mean thyroid dysfunction belt. I called stouffer’s frozen foods and Campbell’s spups when I found out my thyroid was malfunctioning and they do not use iodized sodium. I’m guessing most of the packaged food we eat is not iodized, and doctors don’t check iodine levels much anymore they just prescribe synthroid.

But, muscle swelling is a symptom that I cannot explain, I don’t know enough medicine. If the swelling was in lower extremities I would say heart, kidney, or maybe gout. Although, Gout can occur in joints above the toes, have they checked her uric acid level for gout? That is extremely painful when it flairs up.

I beg of you again, make sure they have checked her vitamin D, that is not a commonly done test, although becoming more common, and ask about the gout possibility, if they did that test or if the doctor doesn’t think it is gout for other reasons maybe. My knowledge of gout is limited.

@HULK I had a friend with many vague but not a few symptoms, aches, joint pain. . . .
It took a while before a test for Lyme Disease came back positive. Three months later after a long term antibiotic therapy plan. The infection was gone.
The disease had caused damage to her thyroid and many other organs and joints.

Lymes is a good guess also. Especially with the joint problems.

I googled this for gout, on first glance it doesn’t look like it occurs all the way up in the shoulder, usually down in the joints of the legs.

She was never bitten by a tick.

@hulk How would she necessarily know? Worth doing the test. They might have already.

@HULK It doesn’t work that way, this friend was “never bitten” either. But had the disease anyway. It is only a simple test to find out.

Ok. It’s odd they tested for so many things. But I don’t know if they tested her for that. I guess her symptoms are so all over the place, it confuses the doctors. I guess if it was an option, her Rheumatologist would have suggested it. idk.

Don’t assume anything. In the last ten years they do test for Lyme more regularly, but you never know.

I think it’s great you are trying to help her.

@JLeslie Are you practicing medicine without a license? It’s against the law you know.
Seriously, you are telling @HULK his friend should demand all of these tests and it just doesn’t work that way. No doctor is going to run all those tests without reason because insurance will not pay for it.

@chyna: That’s right. Even when she made suggestions, the doctors don’t do anything unless they feel like there is reason to do it. I know I always tell her not to diagnose herself or tell the doctor which disease she thinks she has, because they may not take her seriously. I told her to just mention all of her symptoms, and let the doctors do their work. Unfortunatley, she has some very disrespectful and incompitent doctors who didn’t care about what she had to say or spend the time to listen fully. I really feel bad for her. Am glad she’s not depressed over it.

@chyna How many times did I say I am not a doctor. I do think she should demand the tests I listed initially. I also think most likely some of them have been run already. I wrote that. I also said when I didn’t know much about a disease and I also said those tests could come out all fine. I would be willing to bet money at least one of those tests I mentioned is outside of normal ranges or close to outside.

Haven’t you ever gone to a new doctor who runs tests your previous doctor never did? Or, get advice from a friend that was helpful. It isn’t like anything I suggest she can just run out and do, the doctor would have to agree. If he has a good explanation why a test is not necessary knowing the patient better than I obviously do, then that is just fine with me. We have doctors on fluther who don’t believe in the vitamin D thing, and then my endocrinologists firmly believes it helps her patients. There are doctors on fluther who never heard of armour thyroid (the prescription natural medicine) and they treat thyroid conditions, and I know for me, and some other peopl,e it has been much better, and I remember a Q where a jelly was really upset that a new doctor put her on armour and it was magical for her. Upset her former doctor never tried it. If she had asked a question here, someone might have tried to pursuade her to try the armour or suggest it, but instead she was solely relying on her doctor and feeling like shit. Or, she could have tried adding synthetic T3. It doesn’t matter. The point is doctors screw up all the time, or lack knowledge on certain things, they are human. It’s not like she is going to go on the black market and buy thyroid medication I would never suggest anything of the sort. Everything would be done with a doctor’s partnership.

I don’t apologize for suggesting tests and possibilities. I never say to just go out and dose up heavily on anything, not drugs or herbs or anything, without a medical reason to do it, and by medical reason I don’t mean symptims I mean some sort of lab proof or diagnosis. The only exception is when someone has a cold I do tell them to take antihistimine and decongestant, and afrin in addition if they are flying, but even then I try to remember to make sure they read the warning label.