how high of a heart rate is immediately dangerous?

[david2357]

Yes, I know that tachycardia begins over 100 bpm (but this is blatently an arbitrary number, and not a safety thing).

Ok , i normally have a pretty good heart rate and blood pressure.

But when I take amphetamine in high doses or DXM my heart rate(espescially with amphetamines) and blood pressure (espescially DXM) get really high. Like on DXM i think my blood pressure was like 176 or something, i dont remember.

But last night i took 70mg adderall (intentionally over the dosage) to get a nice buzz and my resting heart rate reached 141bpm and blood pressure 150. Yes i know anything over 100 is tachycardia, but im talking about: how high does it have to get for it to be life threatening in the short term?

Please dont say ask a doctor. I am obviously not going to tell my doctor who writes my adderall prescription that I have taken large doses of it and/or snorted it to get stronger effects.


I know 141 bpm sounds bad. but people's hearts beat faster than that when they are exercising.

[Nicole!]

Don't intentionally take extra for a 'buzz', it usually doesn't work that way and its not worth it. The dosage warning is there for a reason, overdoses can be dangerous.

[Chair]

Nobody here can prove to you their credentials, and even if they could, they wouldn't be able to examine you to tell you what hr would be immediately dangerous for you.
We don't even know what kind of equipment you're measuring your hr with or what you mean by 'high doses' of DXM.

So all Chair can say is that you're risking your life to get a buzz, when there are safer and more productive ways to feel good in this world... like going to furniture stores and sitting on every piece of furniture. yes. every piece of furniture.

[Dr.Bobby]

Originally Posted by david2357

Please dont say ask a doctor.

Oops, too late

David, what you're doing is very dangerous, you need to stop.

Raising your blood pressure and heart rate chemically is a lot different than the natural process of aerobic exercise. So, even though exercise can safely raise both, what you're doing is destructive.

If you cannot stop doing this, then tell that doctor who's prescribing and let him get you some therapy to help you control those self destructive urges.

[Ryan1]

David, I’m not sure what kind of advice your looking for here, what your doing just seems risky. Your body has to last your entire life, by taking these drugs for the wrong reasons can have dramatic affects. If you care about your wellbeing you’d stop before it’s too late. Unfortunately I don’t know when it will become life threatening but it’s certain that you’re more likely to have issues long term, its scary because long term in your case my only be a year depending on how frequently you use.

At the end of the day you can’t say you didn’t know. When you play with fire you’ll get burnt.

[OMFG!You'reActuallySmart!]

I'm not going to tell you to stop with what you're doing because you're aware it is dangerous and others have expanded on that.

You can have a heart rate of over 150 and be fine as there are individual differences to consider, although if you're not exercising and it's at 150 bpm, you should be worried. Assuming you're perfectly healthy, I'd say it's life-threatening once you enter ventricular tachycardia (VT) or supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) where the heart rate can easily go over 220 bpm because around that level, you're likely to faint, chest pains as though Mike Tyson were punching you from the inside and risk ventricular fibrillation or death. The danger is the high likelihood of fainting can be life-threatening depending on the setting.

Just to confuse you, people can have a heart rate jump from resting to around 200 bpm with a simple motion, such as getting up from the chair and not have a life-threatening risk. This is why you have to factor in individual differences as this can occur if someone has Bouveret-Hoffmann Syndrome. If you don't have this, then any form of ventricular tachycardia (i.e. very high heart rate of ~200+ bpm) needs medical attention as it's life-threatening. As the heart rate increases beyond 200 and 250 bpm, the life-threatening risk increases. I'm sure you could have 300 bpm and be standing (not for very long mind you as you'd faint and probably die).