Possible heart arrythmia, fatigue, difficulty breathing.

[waiatm]

18 year old male. Around the beginning of February I was experiencing vision problems, tachycardia, and an overall poor feeling that I thought felt like anxiety. I had a few doctor appointments, did some blood work (CBC, tested thyroid) and got a chest x-ray and everything was normal. The next step was supposed to be an EKG but I had bleeding with my stool which was then determined to be a meckels diverticulum (or something close to that,) I had a bowel resection and my appendix removed. Supposedly I had trouble coming out of the anesthesia and the anesthesiologist was asking if I had a heart condition. Obviously I awoke and began recovering. After 2-3 days in the hospital I felt at least how I was before the ordeal and upon being discharged I had strange air around the right side of my stomach and air in the soft tissues which crunch, near the bottom of my rib that has lasted a few days but is going down and doesn't seem to be a big part of the issue. After feeling like things were getting better and having forgot about my previous ailment, I began feeling discomfort around my heart that seems like an arrythmia, it feels as though it skips a beat and then has a rough beat afterwards (notice it  every couple minutes perhaps) almost like a bad transmission. Also, I've had a high heart rate, even though I do not feel anxious or panicky, a strange headache, feeling faint, and an overall just bad feeling. I've been back to the emergency room and they did a CT scan and an additional chest xray because my main symptom for going was difficulty breathing. I now have an appointment with my primary care doctor tomorrow and a referral for a cardiologist in just under a week.. I was just wondering about any futher ideas or experience any of you may have had.

--Additional information-- When I stand up my heartrate and basically all other issues are immediately amplified so very soon after moving I am forced to find a seat/place to lay and slow down or I feel faint. Also after losing a lot of blood from the meckel I was a little anemic (hemoglobin dropped to little over 8) but I felt better then and it is now up to 11.6--


Thanks!

[waiatm]

Thanks for the comment, tried your egg whites idea, yum. Yeah, there have been less of the other symptoms and more of the heart palpitations so now they have me hooked up to a holter monitor to see heart activity for 24hrs so hopefully that shows something, which is better than nothing. Then ordered an echo of the heart so now I just wait and hope nothing bad happens. In my opinion problems with the heart are the scariest thing! Thanks for your concern, I'll post any new information (:

[Heiferly]

I am really reluctant to even begin to speculate about what might be going on with you right now.  You've been through a great ordeal and your body may still be struggling to recover.  Whether or not there could be autonomic dysfunction involved is really only something that tests can show, and at this point, it may be difficult to tease out hypovolemia, deconditioning (I presume you've been forced to significantly lower your activity level through this ordeal), iron deficiency (have ferritin levels been checked for comprehensiveness?), or other confounding variables secondary to what you went through last month that would rule out a "true" diagnosis of dysautonomia.  

At this point, my advice to you is to keep up with the doctor appointments, make sure you have a list of "talking points" when you see the cardiologists so you remember to mention everything you want them to know about and get them to answer all your questions while you're there (but are also able to do so concisely because most specialists like to move quickly), drink TONS of fluids in the meantime (preferably something like gatorade, powerade, or even pedialyte to help your electrolytes), get plenty of lean proteins in your diet to support your blood cells (egg whites are awesome ... my nutritionist turned me on to the fact that you really won't notice if an omelette has one whole egg and three egg whites or two and two ... however you do it, but the whites will really boost the protein without adding to the cholesterol and stuff), and keep detailed records of your symptoms and everything so you have something concrete to show the doctors when you go in.

Keep us updated.  I hope you start getting answers.  I know the not knowing is agonizing when you're feeling so awful.

Best,
Heiferly.