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Could I be having an Endocrine-related issue?

37 year old Caucasian male. Fairly muscular and fit. 5'8 and 150 pounds. I've been "tired" for a lot of my life and couldn't focus that well. High school was a big struggle and so is driving to this day. Not mentally alert enough. I've struggled cognitively at some jobs.

I've got sleep issues. I wake up consistently every 30-35 minutes all night long every night like clockwork. I have a sleep cam with night vision hooked to my home security DVR. It logs me turning over and shifting all night long. It is like I do it by a clock and is always 30-35 minutes every hour and every day. An in-lab sleep study showed 4.7 apneas/hypopneas an hour an 18 Respiratory Disturbance Index, so 18 events per hour. I've tried CPAP and it didn't work. My new sleep doctor says that looking at my sleep lab results, I don't need CPAP. He doesn't think my sleep study is accurate and says they probably scored it wrong in the lab.

From December 2019 - January 2020, I went to the ER 3 times. Usually at night right before bed it would start. My heart started racing, I felt a cold feeling in my chest, blood pressure went up pretty high ( up to 173/100), I felt faint-like, my whole body was trembling with adrenaline, etc. Had all kinds of EKG's at the hospital, endless blood work for everything that they could test for (but hospitals are limited, of course), had an MRI of the abdomen, a contrast CT scan of the abdomen, etc. All of the organs looked fine. They even checked for blood clots, heart attack enzyme, etc. Discharged every time with no known cause.

GP doctor did all kinds of blood work a few months ago over several visits. Even blood work for adrenal tumors and such. I went to a Cardiologist and while my blood pressure was high sitting there, he had no idea why. I came back the next day and did a full Stress Echocardiogram, they looked at my heart beating in real-time via ultrasound and were able to see blood flow rates and everything digitally. They gave me an event monitor to press to my chest during these "attacks" and while I used it, they never noted anything out of the ordinary when I sent the results in.

In February, three of us in the household got a nasty stomach bug. After that, I developed Gastritis and had a lot of abdominal pain and GI issues. The Gastroenterologist that I have been under the care of for 2+ months first put me on a Proton Pump Inhibitor for a couple of weeks and scheduled an EGD (Upper Endoscopy). That revealed only a red and inflamed stomach lining and the stomach biopsy was negative for bacteria and cancer.

To this day I'm getting palpitations and my blood pressure monitor shows an alert sometimes for irregular heartbeat, which means that within the 30 seconds to a minute of it testing, it noticed a 25% increase or decrease of pulse rate. Previous GP doctor tried to blame it all on anxiety and wanted me to keep taking Metoprolol to get rid of the symptoms, but not figure out why I have them. When the Metoprolol wasn't working, they wanted to keep upping the dose to cover the symptoms. I found another local GP doc, but they're not doing in-person visits right now and I had a telemedicine visit.

I sleep horribly. Some nights I just don't feel like sleeping and have heavy malaise, like this morning. I feel like something is wrong/low/malfunctioning in my body. I thought it might have been a vitamin deficiency and people taking PPI's are said to have vitamin deficiencies, so I've taken Potassium, B12, D3 and Magnesium.

For the past 2 weeks, I've gotten to the point of being dizzy all day long from the time that I get up until the time that I go to bed. Sometimes it takes a while after I've gotten up for the dizziness to come back. I feel a little nausea sometimes, chest pains, weird "cold" and tingling feelings in both legs from the knee down, cold/tingling hands and also the external top, sides and back of my head get a cold/tingly feeling sometimes. When I exercise, I feel like I'm going to faint some days and others I can pedal on the recumbent bike and get about 20 minutes in before I feel dizzy. Sometimes exercise makes me tingling in my legs feel much worse for a while. Sometimes blood pressure is a little low or high. Sometimes it is normal with just a high pulse that keeps going up and down. I haven't pinpointed if it is sugar related or food related, but after I ate some broccoli and a few chicken wings this morning followed by a bit of chocolate later on, I felt tingling/coldness in my hands. My hands and feet feel quite cold sometimes and will have a light shade of purplish color under the nails.

Could something be wrong on the Endocrine side of things? I'm planning to visit an Endocrinologist just as soon as I can get an appointment. I'm suspecting Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome or Dysautonomia caused by something, for my dizziness.

When I lay down to sleep sometimes, my body goes into a "vibrating" mode after 5-10 minutes of lying down and nobody knows what it is or what is causing it. It isn't my heart fibrillating because my pulse is normal when I feel my body shaking like that. Could it be something Endocrine-related that hasn't been found yet?

Recent blood test results ordered by my GI doc showed an A/G ratio of 2.5, which is slightly high. Total cholesterol is slightly high at 203. HDL Cholesterol is low at 38. LDL Cholesterol Calc is 140 and high. T. Chol/HDL Ratio is 5.3 and barely high. T3 Uptake is 22 and showed as low among the range of 24 - 39. Thyroxine (T4) was 9 and normal.

I feel so odd even just sitting in chair, like I need to constantly bounce my leg up and down. I don't think it is anxiety. I feel that same "can't be still" feeling when trying to sleep sometimes, like this morning. I've never had an anxiety problem in 37 years. Work is going great and home is going great. I think it may simply be to distract myself so that I don't focus on how weird I feel. Sometimes I feel a tight feeling just below each ear on either side of my face, a tightness running vertically on either side of my neck.
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363281 tn?1643235611
COMMUNITY LEADER
Hello~You are fortunate in the fact that you have had so many tests and they all have good outcomes. I have a lot of the symptoms you have, especially regarding the dizziness and heart palpatations. My dizziness is with me all the time too, sometimes a wee bit better in the morning until I am up for awhile. This started a few months ago in January with a bad case of vertigo (spinning) I don't do that anymore, but the fear was so bad, and the anxiety so high, that now, I have that feeling like swaying and being on a boat almost all the time. It sucks. The skipped heart beats are so scary too. Unlike you you, though, the doctor hasn't given me any tests, just blood work and some visual neuro-checks, so I live in constant fear of these issues being serious. In New Zealand, if you can't afford to pay, you can still see a specialist but they have to be referred, so I have finally talked my GP into referring me to one, but since he doesn't think it is serious, I may have to wait up to 6 months.

So, why I am sharing all this, well, for one, to say you are not alone in this, but the fact that your doctor(s) have given you all the tests and they are good, is a wonderful sign. I hate to say this, but the symptoms may be due to stress or anxiety. I would certainly make an appointment with an endocrinologist to see what they have to say for peace of mind.
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