Need some help/advice

[Soup6]

Hey guys, so I have been going through a lot since November, and I would appreciate it if someone could read the massive wall of text I am about to write, and give me some feedback/advice on my situation.  Thanks!

It all started in November.  I am a 20 year old, male university student.  I had been smoking marijuana avidly for 2 years before November, and cigarettes for about 2 months.  Binge drinking occasionally on weekends (University parties).  I had no problems with my heart/anxiety before all of this.

One night: I was smoking some weed out of a bong with my friend in his room.  Nothing different or new here.  I went back to my room to start studying for a test.  Once I sat down at my chair, I noticed my heart was going a little fast.  Probably from the walk over I thought.  I began reading over my notes, and 2 minutes later I noticed it was going even faster.  I got a little alarmed, since I am a hypochondriac, I thought it could be a million different things.  I walked down to my kitchen to get a drink, and suddenly all the muscles in my abdomen tensed up and I got this horrible feeling of doom.  My HR went through the roof and I thought I was going to die.  To make an even longer story short, I ended up breathing into a paper bag and calming myself down.  I went to the doctor the next day, and she said it was an anxiety attack.

[vjg13]

I have been having similar symptoms my heart rate resting seems to be anywhere from 80-90 upon standing and walking to the restroom I get a blood rushing to the head feeling and my heart rate will be anywhere from 110-120.  There are very rare times though that my rate will be somewhere in the 70's during these times I can stand do a light jog and my heart rate will not go over 100 I feel real good during these times the other times I feel feel short of breath real easy.

[Bridget A. Hewitt, RN]

Hi, the MD's at MedHelp will be happy to try and answer your questions, you just need to shorten your post into the allowed space.  Try just listing the events rather than writing them out in sentences.  When you are ready, post your abreviated question in the "ask the doctor" heart forum. Good luck

[Soup6]

Since that day, everything has changed.  I was having anxiety attacks every day from November - December, causing me to go to the ER at one point.  I have had the following tests done:
EKG
Echocardiogram
Stress Test Echocardiogram
Blood Tests
Chest X-Ray
Holter Monitor
Event Monitor (awaiting results)

All of the tests came back positive, saying that I was fine (minus the Event monitor).  I have some Lorazepam for when I get anxiety attacks, but I haven't had a non-weed related anxiety attack since December.  I have since quit smoking + drinking until I get myself back on track. I will never smoke cigarettes again. (Been about 5 months).

However, I have been experiencing these symptoms that I don't feel are related to anxiety at all.  They come pretty much chronically every day around the same time.

I get PVCs.  I get them right before I go to sleep, when I am lying in bed, on either my left or right side.  I don't get them when I am lying on my back, or chest, only the sides.  I have tried to ignore them, passing them off as anxiety, but they don't stop until I change position back to lying on my back, or chest, or sit up.

Also, when I am trying to fall asleep (while on my back or chest), I get these short bursts of panic and lightheadedness.  They will come and go very rapidly.  I will get a feeling of panic, and it will make me feel like I am about to pass out, and then it will go away 2 minutes later...then come back... then go away...

These 2 symptoms combined makes falling to sleep very difficult!

I get fast heart rates.  When I go from a sitting, to a standing position, my HR jumps from 60 bpm, to 150 bpm.  I can't even go to the bathroom after waking up in the morning without experiencing this.

I also get tachycardia when I am full.  And if I try to exercise (20 minutes or more) after eating, I get PVCs and ectopic beats.  My girlfriend and I tried an experiment: She made me eat an entire medium pizza, that I could barely get through, and then 30 minutes later we had sexual intercourse.  I couldn't finish, because I was getting so many PVCs and my heart was going so fast I thought I was going to pass out.


After a night of drinking (before I quit drinking), I would wake up in the morning with a HR of 150-160.  This happened everytime.  To get the Drs to see it, I drank heavily the night before my stress test, and when they put the leads on the next morning, they said it was Sinus Tachycardia with a little bit of "in flow stenosis" which I have no idea what it means.

I have also been having the worst acid reflux of my life.  I regurgitate stuff constantly, and I get really bad chest pains from it.  I get PVCs when I have a lot of gas, and I can make them go away by pressing in to the center of my chest, and I feel the air leave the chest cavity, around my right side ribs!  I can also make the PVCs/Chest pain go away by sitting up all the way, and squeezing my abdomen to my legs really hard.  

As you can probably tell by my super long post, I do have anxiety, and I am a hypochondriac.  But what I want to know is how all of these symptoms can possibly be related to anxiety!

My friend showed me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unexplained_death_syndrome and I have pretty much the same symptoms as the people who experienced this.  This made my anxiety even worse.

If you read all of this, thank you so much, you don't know how much it means to me!
Any, and all advice is appreciated very much!