Baffled confused and fed up.

[Jessygirl623]

For years I have been trying to get an answer to this feeling I get in my throat. At the vast on my neck right able my collar bone occasionally feel a "knock" it's a light sensation  nothing hard but totally catches me by surprise and is very alarming. I recently though it was an extra heart beat because when I check my pulse I feel my pulse pause for a second at the same time and then it continues on. My heart rate is about 85-90 a minute. I have normal blood pressure but very very high anxiety!!! And this makes it worse.

When I worry about "this odd feeling" it happens more. When I don't worry about it it happens i can't pin point it to anything. I don't drink caffeine, eat chocolate or drink alcohol .  In the last year I have had 2 halter monitors, a echocardiogram with a stress test and I wore an event monitor for 3 weeks with no bad results. Cardiologist said everything was normal.

Recently I have been feeling this sensation a lot throughout the day like 20 times a day. When on most occasions just 1-2 times a day. I went to the cardiologist because now I'm pregnant and she said let's put another monitor on you and see what we find. I wore the monitor for 48 hours and felt the sensations in my throat very often. I even at one point felt my pulse while it was happening and felt it pause for a second so I was convinced it was just extra heart beats. The dr just called me and told me my monitor was completely normal and I did not have one extra heart beat. How can that be when I felt my pulse pause for a moment??? Your pulse pauses for a second after you have an extra beat to make up for the extra beat I have learned. A halter monitor continually monitors every single heart beat.  My questions is if that monitor is not picking up any extra beats or missed beats what is going on with my pulse that it's stopping for a second? This is driving me crazy!

[itdood]

It sounds like a PAC or PVC to me.I find it hard to believe that they aren't seeing these on the holter when you are feeling that "pause" sensation.

The sensation in your throat is classic for these.  It has to do with the way blood is being pumped during an extra systole.  A systole is basically a pulse of blood pressure when your ventricles pump.

Try thinking of it terms of, "OK, they are PVCs or PACs"?  what then? Are you going to be harmed by these immediately?  NO!  Are you going to be harmed by these in the long run?  NO!  

Infrequent, isolated PACs/PVCs are very very common.  Studies have shown they have no prognostic value (if ruled to be isolated, infrequent, and benign).

Any logical person would not throw medication or surgery at a problem like that.  The medication or the surgery would do more harm than the condition you are trying to fix.  So say you push really hard to get a proper diagnosis, what then?  well there isn't much that can be done.  You get to the bottom of it, and your answer is going to be "carry on, move on, there's nothing we can do"

OK, it makes me scared, what can we do stop the fear?  I live through this daily.  They scare me too.  I've had episodes of 6,000 PVCs per day for 8 month straight, keeping me up all night, my entire body would shake from the PVC, I felt every one of them.  So I know this issue first hand.  I tried EVERYTHING, medication, surgical consult, supplements, exercise, mediation, punching my chest to make it beat right, punching my chest in sheer anger at my heart for doing such ********.  I truly did walk through the valley of death.  I saw 6 or 7 different doctors, nothing helped except time.

Day to day I still get them occasionally.  I get flare ups that last a few days.  I get scared when it happens.  When it's over I don't think about it anymore. I take my daily dose of punishment and keep going.  But I absolutely do not fear dying from it.  My fear, is the fear of panic, I fear getting depressed and anxious over it again.  But I don't fear being harmed or dying from it.

Sorry I don't have any great advice.  It's something I've learned to live with, sort of. All I can say is, I tried every option back during my 2009 major flare, and there wasn't a damn thing that could help or figure out why.

[trus75]

Hi There

I feel my PVCs / PACs / extra beats exactly in the same way, like a small knock on my throat. And if I'm measuring my heart rate, I can feel they are really extra beats (at the same time I feel the kick on my throat).

I'm not very experienced with this stuff, but I find a little strange that your monitor haven't found any single PVC in 48 hours. Maybe the monitor wasn't very accurate, or maybe your doctor didn't want to tell you that you have 200 or 300 PVCs a day, which is completely "normal"? Maybe he just didn't want to alarm you and make you more anxious, because you might think it's something bad, and it's not.

I know they're very annoying, and I'm as anxious as you, but they're not a big deal, unless you have a very large number (I've read that some people have more than 50,000 a day)....

[jose676]

you might want to see someone who balances chakras, when there is an imbalance in a chakra like the throat chakras it's likely that you have been someone that is unable to say what they want to say.  If this is something you struggle with, balancing the throat chakras is likely to solve this issue.

[Jerry_NJ]

Sorry to read you have having this "heart" problem/symptom.. must be especially troubling while being a mother and expectant second time - I assume the baby in your avatar is yours.

It is also good to read you are getting expert medical care an attention. Here's my idea on resolution of two of your issues:
1) I notice almost always that when I look at my wrist watch and look at the second hand it seems to take way to long to move or click (digital).. the only explanation I have is told in the old saying:  "a watched pot never boils".:  Or, I vote that the monitor is accurate and you just misjudge the timing of your pulse, especially easy on a delay.  Extra beats are easier to catch..those too should be caught by the monitor.
2) Stress/anxiety can cause high heart rate (your 85-90 is an acceptable resting HR, but is at the upper end) and heart rhythm problems, but again the monitor should record any that occur when your are wearing.

Best to give belief and trust in your cardiologist's diagnosis... not sure how to do that, but you have a lot to think about and I'm sure work to accomplish and those can be helpful if you focus your attention on them.