Arrhythmia?

[Farmrush]

I'm not really sure what's going on, but I'll provide some back-story. I haven't talked to my doctor yet, but I'll get ahold of him asap. I'm a 22-year-old male, healthy, and attending school. I have no known disorders or diseases, aside from a mild heart defect where sometimes the blood in my heart gets backwashed (I forget what this was called, but was informed it is largely inconsequential). I had an ECG and heart ultrasound a few years ago for an episode of tachycardia and those came back fine. Skipping forward, a month ago I had a panic attack. This was not the first, but following the attack I have been feeling off. My extremities are cold all the time. They go blue outside and my fingernails are always purple. I have checked with a doctor and he said, "wear gloves" and that my capillaries were fine, but the problem persists. I have now begun to experience 'heart flutters', that is, a feeling that my heart seizes, flutters, then continues on its way. These happens throughout the day and are usually preceded by a skipped beat and followed by a hard pound in my chest. I am not experiencing chest pain of any noticeable quality, but am experiencing a bit of light-headedness. I have not passed out. I also experiencing twitching, anxiety, and vision problems. I have seen a neurologists and an optometrist, both of which said I was fine. My MRI of the spine and brain came back fine, with only mild discal bulging near my neck (I forget which one exactly). My vision tests came back normal.

Any ideas?

[cindy707]

When you said you had an ECG a little while ago you didn't say if a cardiologist was seeing you or if it was in the E.R,  You need to make sure that a heart doc is the one that sees you and does the work up.  i agree with itdood that anxiety can cause alot of these symtoms because when you have a panic attack it is sort of like mental shock and your body reacts the same....blood leaves your extremities and rushes to all of your major organs to keep them warm, happy and protect them thus cold hand hands and feet and the blue/purple color but you want to make sure that you don't have a circulation problem.   If it were my body i would go back and get another ECG w. a heart doc since its been 3 years and ask if you are a candidate for a holter monitor for a couple of days so they can track what is going on with your heart...however......age is definately on your side and atypically a healthy young 22 years old breezes thru the exams....i would relax a little bit and when you get into the severe cold hands and feel if possible hop into a hot shower and put your socks on afterward to warm your body back up....,sounds like you are thinking way too much about this and may be looking for trouble where there is none....we all get a little bit of anxiety when our body doesn't respond the way its supposed to............................

[itdood]

There are some sympathetic nervers that come out right arounf T1 (your bulging disk).

Panic attacks / anxity can cause hands to go numb and trigger the circulation to slow down.

There's also something called Raynaud's disease which can have this effect on the hands but I think you're just experiencing rebound anxiety from the panic attacks.