Heart and bleching

[jojojc]

I am a 36yr old female. I have GERD dx one year ago along with slight hiatal hernia. One month ago i had an ablation done on my heart due to svt's.  In the past month i have experienced sharp chest pain, skipped beats that make the heart race faster, right after this occurs I have a terrible time of bleching, almost pure air, some nausea not much. I feel like my food is sitting there and won't move.  I have had an EKG, a thallium stress test and an echo.  All come back normal.  I wore a holter monitor and the skips did not show on the monitor.
I am at the point where nothing I eat agrees with me.  Usually after i eat I feel this intense bleching come over me and the heart starts racing and feels to skip.  I went to a GI doc yesterday and is scheduling me for a sonogram on my gallbladder along with an endoscopopy. Can the Gerd and heart be related.The doctors are telling me that the heart is fine, but it acts up with each of these episodes. I also get a surge of adeline (sp?) when this happens also.  I will see my ep cardiologist this week for a follow up, but i know he will say my heart is fine, because my test come back normal.  I have not wore a holter monitor when these intense episodes are occurring.
I have been taking Nexium once a day, the GI just increased it to twice a day.  Is that ok to take it twice a day? An example of this is last night I ate dinner around 5:30 by around 7:00 I started feeling some skips.  By 9:00 my heart started racing immediately following intense belching, over and over again.  My food from dinner i could still taste and even a cookie I ate around 4:00. My blood pressure went to about 140/97..it is usually 115/75.
Does this sound like a digestive problem/esphogus/gallbladder or a heart problem? Also can they go hand and hand.
Thanks

[Kevin Pho, MD]

The heart has had a pretty comprehensive evaluation.  The only other test I would consider would be an event monitor.  I think this is more helpful than a Holter, since you can control when to record your heart rhythm.

As for the GI workup - I would agree with the ultrasound and endoscopy being the next steps.  Things like GERD, gallbladder disease, ulcers or inflammation of the upper digestive tract can certainly cause your symptoms.  

If those tests are negative, more specialized tests can be considered, including a 24-hr pH study with esophageal motility testing (completely ruling out GERD and motility disorders as a cause), and a gastric emptying scan (looking for gastroparesis) can be discussed with your personal physician.

I am not aware of GERD affecting the heart.  Under proper supervision of your GI doc, it should be safe to take the Nexium twice a day.  

Followup with your personal physician is essential.

This answer is not intended as and does not substitute for medical advice - the information presented is for patient education only. Please see your personal physician for further evaluation of your individual case.

Kevin, M.D.
Medical Weblog:
kevinmd_b

[skiff186]

You might want to check one of the MVPS web sites. That stands for (Mitral Valve Prolapse Syndrome).  Just google MVPS or you can spell it out as above.  I believe it might be something that will be helpful.

DH

[yoshi]

i wonder if you dont have enough stomach acid to digest the food??
you said you can feel and taste the food you ate??
when you have your bowel movement,see if you are passing half digested or undigested food .this is a sign your stomach is not digesting the food well.

[jojojc]

Just curious, do you feel this on a regular basis...the skips i mean?  Did your skips show on your monitor? I am having trouble dealing with this at the moment as i keep thinking it could start again at any time.
I have been praying for healing!! I will pray for you too.
Joanne

[erichigg]

I'm thankful for a message board like this. I have had almost exactly what you described. Wen't through the holter monitor, echocardiograms all that... thankfully nothing showed. I have a diagnosis of IBS. There is something that clearly happens in me that sounds like your issue also. The 1st incident was when i was 18, i am now 29. If i have gas in some area near my sternum, if i am feeling my pulse, this gas when it moves will make my heart skip a beat, or sometimes an extra beat. If I bend over forward the "wrong way" something feels like it pinches and my heart goes off to the races and my blood pressure is up. In my mid 20s i was very fit, and had essentially no problems. In my late 20s i hold a desk down all the time, i am no longer fit. I recently read about a syndrome where people hyperventilate to an unnoticable degree. each time i had the extremely fast racing heart, i would also hyperventilate. my hands woudl get numb, etc. a couple of years ago when this all began again for me, the ER doc told me to hold my breath for a couple seconds which did help. I'm wondering if this disorder applies to me. here is the web site where i read about it if anyone wants to see it:

http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic270.htm#section~workup

Apart from the bending over and the pinch and racing heart, i have also had times that triggered this from a loud arguement i regret i participated in, and also once while i was performing vocals. in both of those, i see the potential for some sort of constriction that cause that sternum area "pinch" based on diaphram movement. there has got to be some reason for this. I pray for all of us that the Docs will figure this out.

I also have issues with the standard ibs stuff, but somehow it seems to all be related. Any help is much appreciated.

I will continue to ask Jesus for help and hope you will also. I'm looking fw to the response from the Doctor here for any insight.
-Eric

[erichigg]

Skips didn't show on the monitor just like you. This goes back to the 1st incident when i was 18. I would feel it, then hit the little button. Results came back nothing wrong. You have no idea how much your issue sounds just like me. The only thing I've found to help is to take some anti gas med like phazyme. when i was 18, my instructions from the doc were to take gas x after every meal. I am 100% certain that it is gas related by my monitoring my own pulse and waiting for a gas bubble to move near the sternum area. the only thing that seems to differ from us at all is the belching. knowing that the gas build up is somewhere near the root of this, i am glad to get rid of it any way I can. :-). I have incidents with the racing infrequently (thank God), but the skipping and extra beats is much more frequent and is nearly alway realted to gas. then there are peridos of time where even the skipping is not seen for a long time. I truly think that this is somehow related to the diaphram muscle as talked about in that hyperventillation article. one reason i think this is that to remedy the racing heart i would often stretch out my stomach area in addition to taking gas relief medicine. before my physical fitness declined as it has in recent years, simply stretching out would stop the racing almost immediately.

It's a very scary thing indeed. For what it's worth, i've lived with it for 11 years now. I've had ekgs a couple different times... everything cool. Some nerve or something must get pinched. I know i also have anxiety issues, but i'm wondering if that might have something to do with the hyperventillation stuff. the symptoms listed there are crazy similar to my own. I hope the Docs here have some insight for us. I will pray for u also. Hang in there. I can't stress enough (to myself mostly :-)) that when i was working out regularly i didn't have even the skip or extra beats even once for something like 4-5 years. To me that screams something about the muscles in the area. I've got to get some exercise going again. My email is my nickname at yahoo land if you (or a doc with some good plumbing tools :-)) would want to write me. Hang in there! Docs are figuring out so many new things all the time these days. I pray they figure this one out.
-Eric