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Do you think something is wrong with my heart?

A little about me.

I have had pretty high heart anxiety for years.  There has not been a day in over 5 years I have not been worried about my heart.  I had what I am pretty sure was a panic attack about 5 years ago and the anxiety has be constant ever since.  

I am grossly overweight.  I am 6'0 and weigh about 340 pounds.  I have a ton of debt for ER visits and dr visits.  In the last 5 years I have had 2 stress tests and about a dozen EKGs.  The last EKG and stress tests were about 3 years ago.  Recently I have been trying to exercise but have been having left arm pain.  So I talked to my doctor (GP not carido) and she took blood work.  This was in November.  Some of the numbers are below.

BP -  128/78
LDL - 145
HDL -  27
Trigly-  143
wbc -  7.5
rbc -  5.19

There are alot more.  If something is relevant let me know I probably have it.  

She said everything was fine and to exercise.  So I have been walking.  At first all was well, but now not so much.  I was doing about 14000 steps a day.  Now when I start walking, I'd guess around 400 or so steps I start getting really bad heart burn, acid coming up my throat.  And then weird feeling in my chest.  It is not a constant feeling it happens briefly for a second and passes.  I think it might be my heart skipping a beat.  However I don't know how that feels.  The sensation is strange in my chest, it makes me take a quick, sudden deep breath, and then a weird feeling radiates outward and then gone.  It doesn't hurt, it is scary.  A couple times after it has happened I get a strong pain in my shoulder.  It is not radiating, it is very isolated to my shoulder.  Then I get light headed briefly and then that passes.  The fitbit I wear has a HR monitor on it.  My resting pulse is about 80.  When I am walking it gets up to about 110-120.  I think I am noticing that when I walk faster to get the HR up, and then let it drop is when the feeling occurs.  Like if I go to 130 and slow down and it drops back to 110.  

Do you think this is an actual heart problem?  More anxiety?  Due to the heart burn?

Also I have chest pain almost always if I have to deficate.  




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Avatar universal
It's good that you recognize that you suffer from anxiety, for your fixation on your ticker certainly sounds as though that is part of your problem.  Then there's the weight:  as you know, that doesn't help.

Your blood pressure is amazingly good.  Your blood fats not so good.  The fluttery sensation sounds like a skipped beat issue (maybe a 'premature ventricular contraction'--google it), which can make you feel faint, sometimes due to nothing more than fear or panic, but sometimes medically significant..  You need a better cardiac workup.

Given your weight and your blood fats, I would suggest you go to a real cardiologist.  At the very least, you should have a stress test and a 24-hour Holter Monitor.  And maybe consider signing up for Obama Care.

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