Aa
Vagus nerve
I am having the similar problems. I feel dizzy and then my heart starts racing and I feel like I need to have a bowel movement. It is very scary.
This discussion is related to VAGUS NERVE and STOMACH or HEART LURCHES (spasms).
This discussion is related to VAGUS NERVE and STOMACH or HEART LURCHES (spasms).
First understand that I am here because I am trying to understand what is happening to me. I am 40 and hate the idea of being stuck with what is happening to me, so I understand your concern. At your age, you should be vibrant, happy, and at peace. Looking forward to the next day.
An endoscope is helpful to know what be going on inside the esophagus. Your description of having trouble getting food down, is typical of GERD sufferers. If that is a problem, at least you will know, and can look for a solution or learn to manage it.
Your description of the light sensitivity etc. sounds Neurological (other than vagus). PLEASE see a specialist to look into that. It could be minor or major.
Remember that anxiety does it's own damage. Learn to manage it, but do not overlook it. Anxiety can be a symptom and a cause. Often it becomes both. Regardless, on it's own it will really beat you up.
Personally, I went to a neurologist for my symptoms. This was a young doctor (for this, I think that it is helpful), and responsive. He thought my ideas on the vagus nerve was a good thought.
I have many of the heart symptoms mentioned here, but I never figured that it was my heart. I will find out the results of tests, monitor, etc this week.
I have the reflux and associated agony/discomfort. I feel as if my digestive system in general is out of order. My symptoms are typical of what is mentioned in this thread. An endoscope has shown minor irritation etc. A small 4cm hernia. They want to talk hernia, and maybe I will revisit that, but I am not convinced that is the root of my problem. A lot of people have hernias and normal reflux.
I have constant ringing in my ears, and a constant low grade pain in the back of my head. I understand that the vagus nerve has some relation to the ears.
I have swallowing problems. Mostly a sore dry throat (LPR), but my palate is not closing off my nasal cavity. Food gets in it, and excessive mucus is made and makes it's own trouble when I swallow. As far as I understand, this is a vagus nerve function.
I am having fainting spells, regardless whether or not I am having the stomach discomfort. My blood pressure, while normally good, fluctuates to an extreme.
The vagus nerve plays a role with the lungs so if the heart is getting told that something is not getting enough oxygen, it goes to work.
I also have rather intense breathing episodes.
My anxiety level has went up, and early on my symptoms led to panic attacks. It seams that I have that under control, the best I can tell. The symptoms are certainly uncomfortable.
My best hope at the moment is Oesteophytes at C5 and C6. I have a visible impression on my esophagus per my barium swallow test. I could have told them that because I feel something there when I can manage to swallow. I am having arm pain weakness tingling etc, so I suspect nerve compression. I am trying to figure out if the vagus nerve is still on the backside of the esophagus at that location. I guess my hope is that I have two sets of nerves getting compressed and a solution.
I had a brain and neck MRI done Friday. I am hoping that my idea is confirmed. I have been dealing with this for a short 8 months, but long enough to lose 25lbs on an already slim build. I am also a builder so the day to day is tough.
I am convinced that if I can just get back to eating, at least my spirits would pick up and I would have more energy.
If anyone has any ideas, let me know.
Steviesteph. Look up. You will figure it out. You can be in good spirits, even in the trouble. The frustration is understandable, just do not let it get the best of you.
An endoscope is helpful to know what be going on inside the esophagus. Your description of having trouble getting food down, is typical of GERD sufferers. If that is a problem, at least you will know, and can look for a solution or learn to manage it.
Your description of the light sensitivity etc. sounds Neurological (other than vagus). PLEASE see a specialist to look into that. It could be minor or major.
Remember that anxiety does it's own damage. Learn to manage it, but do not overlook it. Anxiety can be a symptom and a cause. Often it becomes both. Regardless, on it's own it will really beat you up.
Personally, I went to a neurologist for my symptoms. This was a young doctor (for this, I think that it is helpful), and responsive. He thought my ideas on the vagus nerve was a good thought.
I have many of the heart symptoms mentioned here, but I never figured that it was my heart. I will find out the results of tests, monitor, etc this week.
I have the reflux and associated agony/discomfort. I feel as if my digestive system in general is out of order. My symptoms are typical of what is mentioned in this thread. An endoscope has shown minor irritation etc. A small 4cm hernia. They want to talk hernia, and maybe I will revisit that, but I am not convinced that is the root of my problem. A lot of people have hernias and normal reflux.
I have constant ringing in my ears, and a constant low grade pain in the back of my head. I understand that the vagus nerve has some relation to the ears.
I have swallowing problems. Mostly a sore dry throat (LPR), but my palate is not closing off my nasal cavity. Food gets in it, and excessive mucus is made and makes it's own trouble when I swallow. As far as I understand, this is a vagus nerve function.
I am having fainting spells, regardless whether or not I am having the stomach discomfort. My blood pressure, while normally good, fluctuates to an extreme.
The vagus nerve plays a role with the lungs so if the heart is getting told that something is not getting enough oxygen, it goes to work.
I also have rather intense breathing episodes.
My anxiety level has went up, and early on my symptoms led to panic attacks. It seams that I have that under control, the best I can tell. The symptoms are certainly uncomfortable.
My best hope at the moment is Oesteophytes at C5 and C6. I have a visible impression on my esophagus per my barium swallow test. I could have told them that because I feel something there when I can manage to swallow. I am having arm pain weakness tingling etc, so I suspect nerve compression. I am trying to figure out if the vagus nerve is still on the backside of the esophagus at that location. I guess my hope is that I have two sets of nerves getting compressed and a solution.
I had a brain and neck MRI done Friday. I am hoping that my idea is confirmed. I have been dealing with this for a short 8 months, but long enough to lose 25lbs on an already slim build. I am also a builder so the day to day is tough.
I am convinced that if I can just get back to eating, at least my spirits would pick up and I would have more energy.
If anyone has any ideas, let me know.
Steviesteph. Look up. You will figure it out. You can be in good spirits, even in the trouble. The frustration is understandable, just do not let it get the best of you.
Very interesting I have the exact same symptoms and always wondered if the vagus nerve was responsible..
It's both comforting and disheartening to see so many people are having problems. Mostly disheartening though, because:
1) No one has really found a solid diagnosis with a solid cure, and
2) Everyone here seems to be way way older than me, and dealing with it for a long time, and suffering.
I'm 21 years old, lean/thin (always have been), never drink alcohol, never smoke, never do drugs (neither illegal or prescription), never been pregnant, always had normal menstrual cycles, and have been in pretty good shape up until I was about 14 years old, when I had my first vasovagal attack.
It's really, really upsetting for me to see that there isn't more research in the field of what causes vagus nerve irritation, and that so many people here have gone 10, 20, or even 40 years with the awful symptoms they've had, and nothing that can help them.
I sympathize, but don't want to live the rest of my life like that. I don't want to be confined to my house all alone, not knowing when the next attack is going to happen and afraid to go out in public if I'm feeling the least bit ill. When a vasovagal attack happens, it is debilitating.
I want to go to work. I want to go to school. I don't want to apply for disability, or move in with my parents so they can keep an eye on me But lately these have been suffering because of my symptoms, and I am now completely unable to function normally. And the doctors still cannot figure out what's wrong; and if they do, they don't know how to fix it.
I've had maybe 5 acute vasovagal attacks in the past 7 years, which triggered an episode of SVT every time (with a heart rate of 220 BPM upwards). The cardiologist said I had an extra electrical pathway in my heart that was misfiring and causing the SVT episodes, so I had a catheter ablation done and it seemed to fix the problem...
... Until a few weeks ago. However, when I went into an attack, my BPM was in the 150's range, which is still a significant improvement thanks to the ablation. BUT... I want to find out what is really causing this vagus nerve stimulation. After an attack ends, I feel awful and my heart and breathing is just not right for weeks afterwards. Tests and scans from the cardiologist show nothing. But yet it puts me out of school, out of work. I'm almost done with college, the finish line is right in front of me, and it's frustrating when this disability randomly attacks me and keeps me at home for weeks at a time, with no warning whatsoever.
Things that were usually going on before I had an attack:
- Sitting, hunched over something. Feet on floor or sitting cross-legged made no difference.
- Every time I've gone to the hospital for an attack, they said I was mildly dehydrated. Dehydration may play a role in my attacks, as I live in the dry desert and keeping up with daily fluid intake is a chore.
- I never have an aura or feeling that something bad is going to happen before, but this last time I felt a bit nauseated, weak, and pale. Also suddenly had an extremely hard time paying attention in class. And then the attack suddenly happened.
What happens to me when I get an attack:
- I can be sitting and doing nothing, and my heart will just stop. I start to feel weak and my vision fails for a few seconds, but I take a huge gasp of air and catch myself. (AKA, in the process of passing out due to my heart not beating at all for roughly 4 seconds.)
I've never actually passed out from an attack, but I've gotten extremely close.
- After initial feelings of being about to faint, I take a huge inhalation of air, usually by reflex (I don't remember ever consciously doing this, it just happens, possibly a reflex because my body perceives hypoxia? I don't know). That's when my heart starts to beat again, suddenly in SVT.
- Breathing is really deep and I feel starved for oxygen, and I'm gasping to speak.
- Anxiety comes on about a minute in, because I push away any anxiety when it first happens so that I can deal with what's going on and try to think clearly.
- I feel like I'm going to pass out or my heart is going to stop at any second.
- I've had elevated blood pressure every time, and Oxygen sats are usually less than normal for me. My normal being 99, sometimes they're 97.
- Blood sugar has been normal.
- This last time it happened, people told me I looked pale.
How I feel after the attack ends (for weeks on end):
- Exhausted
- Very depressed, and a lot of the symptoms that accompany depression
- Some occasional anxiety, including agoraphobia and other symptoms that accompany anxiety
- Weak; lifting or pushing/pulling heavy things or anything with resistance makes me feel like I'm working too hard.
- Lack of appetite. I try to eat because I need to eat, but I often times end up gagging and the most I can consume is liquids. For some reason the smell of melted cheese really makes me gag; while I'm not a big cheese fan, I don't know if that's significant or not.
- Very sensitive to heat, it will make me feel like I'm working too hard, and also makes me nauseated, no matter how well I stay hydrated.
- Center of chest from sternum to my navel feels tight, uncomfortable
- Occasional deep but dull pangs of chest pain, in various places.
- When I swallow I feel like there is a lump deep down in my esophagus, and food seems to take longer to reach my stomach and I can feel it go all the way down, with a very dull hurt the closer the food gets to my stomach. It is similar to the feeling of swallowing after healing from heartburn.
- My face now looks pale all the time, and sometimes my lips are more a bit more red than usual.
- I've developed ophthalmic migraines, I have one consistently every 3 months or so.
- I have developed a hypersensitivity to certain lights and patterns over the past couple of years. I never used to be sensitive to either, but sometimes a certain light or pattern will cause me to suddenly feel derealized and lose my balance for a second before I look away and close my eyes. Now this has progressed to the point that if I'm playing the piano and my head is tilted down even slightly to where I can see the pattern of black and white keys, it can happen and I'll lose my balance and start leaning off to the side before I catch myself and shake my head to get rid of the feeling.
- I have also developed flicker vertigo, usually when sunlight (or artificial light from a lamppost at night) shines through rows of trees. I've lived around trees for most of my life, and driven in cars plenty of times, so I don't know why this would start happening so recently.
Also my mom says she's had vasovagal attacks before that have also sent her to the ER (my mom also has GERD), and she said her mom complained about heart problems after they immigrated to the USA during WWII. I hope it's not genetic, but it doesn't matter because doctors don't know what it is. It's not that they blow me off, they just DON'T KNOW.
In short, I don't want to live with this B.S. condition for the majority of my life like a lot of the people here have. It's completely unacceptable. I have such a clean track record that I don't want to waste my life living indoors, unable to do all the things that the other kids do, while even the bad kids that drink and smoke and get crunk and break the law for fun get to have a happy and normal life without any consequences. What do I get?
I'm just so angry and frustrated that I have the problems of an old dying person when I'm only 21. It doesn't help that my mom makes fun of me saying "I have the body and endurance of an old lady", and that when she was my age she was all fit, as if this condition is somehow my fault. I apologize if I have offended anyone by using the term "old dying person", but I hope you can understand where my anger and frustration comes from.
1) No one has really found a solid diagnosis with a solid cure, and
2) Everyone here seems to be way way older than me, and dealing with it for a long time, and suffering.
I'm 21 years old, lean/thin (always have been), never drink alcohol, never smoke, never do drugs (neither illegal or prescription), never been pregnant, always had normal menstrual cycles, and have been in pretty good shape up until I was about 14 years old, when I had my first vasovagal attack.
It's really, really upsetting for me to see that there isn't more research in the field of what causes vagus nerve irritation, and that so many people here have gone 10, 20, or even 40 years with the awful symptoms they've had, and nothing that can help them.
I sympathize, but don't want to live the rest of my life like that. I don't want to be confined to my house all alone, not knowing when the next attack is going to happen and afraid to go out in public if I'm feeling the least bit ill. When a vasovagal attack happens, it is debilitating.
I want to go to work. I want to go to school. I don't want to apply for disability, or move in with my parents so they can keep an eye on me But lately these have been suffering because of my symptoms, and I am now completely unable to function normally. And the doctors still cannot figure out what's wrong; and if they do, they don't know how to fix it.
I've had maybe 5 acute vasovagal attacks in the past 7 years, which triggered an episode of SVT every time (with a heart rate of 220 BPM upwards). The cardiologist said I had an extra electrical pathway in my heart that was misfiring and causing the SVT episodes, so I had a catheter ablation done and it seemed to fix the problem...
... Until a few weeks ago. However, when I went into an attack, my BPM was in the 150's range, which is still a significant improvement thanks to the ablation. BUT... I want to find out what is really causing this vagus nerve stimulation. After an attack ends, I feel awful and my heart and breathing is just not right for weeks afterwards. Tests and scans from the cardiologist show nothing. But yet it puts me out of school, out of work. I'm almost done with college, the finish line is right in front of me, and it's frustrating when this disability randomly attacks me and keeps me at home for weeks at a time, with no warning whatsoever.
Things that were usually going on before I had an attack:
- Sitting, hunched over something. Feet on floor or sitting cross-legged made no difference.
- Every time I've gone to the hospital for an attack, they said I was mildly dehydrated. Dehydration may play a role in my attacks, as I live in the dry desert and keeping up with daily fluid intake is a chore.
- I never have an aura or feeling that something bad is going to happen before, but this last time I felt a bit nauseated, weak, and pale. Also suddenly had an extremely hard time paying attention in class. And then the attack suddenly happened.
What happens to me when I get an attack:
- I can be sitting and doing nothing, and my heart will just stop. I start to feel weak and my vision fails for a few seconds, but I take a huge gasp of air and catch myself. (AKA, in the process of passing out due to my heart not beating at all for roughly 4 seconds.)
I've never actually passed out from an attack, but I've gotten extremely close.
- After initial feelings of being about to faint, I take a huge inhalation of air, usually by reflex (I don't remember ever consciously doing this, it just happens, possibly a reflex because my body perceives hypoxia? I don't know). That's when my heart starts to beat again, suddenly in SVT.
- Breathing is really deep and I feel starved for oxygen, and I'm gasping to speak.
- Anxiety comes on about a minute in, because I push away any anxiety when it first happens so that I can deal with what's going on and try to think clearly.
- I feel like I'm going to pass out or my heart is going to stop at any second.
- I've had elevated blood pressure every time, and Oxygen sats are usually less than normal for me. My normal being 99, sometimes they're 97.
- Blood sugar has been normal.
- This last time it happened, people told me I looked pale.
How I feel after the attack ends (for weeks on end):
- Exhausted
- Very depressed, and a lot of the symptoms that accompany depression
- Some occasional anxiety, including agoraphobia and other symptoms that accompany anxiety
- Weak; lifting or pushing/pulling heavy things or anything with resistance makes me feel like I'm working too hard.
- Lack of appetite. I try to eat because I need to eat, but I often times end up gagging and the most I can consume is liquids. For some reason the smell of melted cheese really makes me gag; while I'm not a big cheese fan, I don't know if that's significant or not.
- Very sensitive to heat, it will make me feel like I'm working too hard, and also makes me nauseated, no matter how well I stay hydrated.
- Center of chest from sternum to my navel feels tight, uncomfortable
- Occasional deep but dull pangs of chest pain, in various places.
- When I swallow I feel like there is a lump deep down in my esophagus, and food seems to take longer to reach my stomach and I can feel it go all the way down, with a very dull hurt the closer the food gets to my stomach. It is similar to the feeling of swallowing after healing from heartburn.
- My face now looks pale all the time, and sometimes my lips are more a bit more red than usual.
- I've developed ophthalmic migraines, I have one consistently every 3 months or so.
- I have developed a hypersensitivity to certain lights and patterns over the past couple of years. I never used to be sensitive to either, but sometimes a certain light or pattern will cause me to suddenly feel derealized and lose my balance for a second before I look away and close my eyes. Now this has progressed to the point that if I'm playing the piano and my head is tilted down even slightly to where I can see the pattern of black and white keys, it can happen and I'll lose my balance and start leaning off to the side before I catch myself and shake my head to get rid of the feeling.
- I have also developed flicker vertigo, usually when sunlight (or artificial light from a lamppost at night) shines through rows of trees. I've lived around trees for most of my life, and driven in cars plenty of times, so I don't know why this would start happening so recently.
Also my mom says she's had vasovagal attacks before that have also sent her to the ER (my mom also has GERD), and she said her mom complained about heart problems after they immigrated to the USA during WWII. I hope it's not genetic, but it doesn't matter because doctors don't know what it is. It's not that they blow me off, they just DON'T KNOW.
In short, I don't want to live with this B.S. condition for the majority of my life like a lot of the people here have. It's completely unacceptable. I have such a clean track record that I don't want to waste my life living indoors, unable to do all the things that the other kids do, while even the bad kids that drink and smoke and get crunk and break the law for fun get to have a happy and normal life without any consequences. What do I get?
I'm just so angry and frustrated that I have the problems of an old dying person when I'm only 21. It doesn't help that my mom makes fun of me saying "I have the body and endurance of an old lady", and that when she was my age she was all fit, as if this condition is somehow my fault. I apologize if I have offended anyone by using the term "old dying person", but I hope you can understand where my anger and frustration comes from.
Wow....i had to look at the name again...thought i was reading my own post. Force those bumps!
&&&&&&&&&______test for multiple sclerosis...MRI WITH contrast....ask heart Dr. For NADALOL for the neurocardiogenic syncope......be careful with prilosec. We need SOME stomach acid. Prilosec can harm the .ph and stress the heart.
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