Hello,
I'm 15 year old male. I am overweight but not clinically obese. I have no history of heart/cardiovascular related illnesses or birth defects. I would like to believe that I am healthy except for my weight problem. I've been exercising daily (60 minutes, but increased to 90 minutes recently) by cycling and walking most of the year and I have lost some weight. I am also somewhat of a Hypochondriac. I visited a doctor twice in my life but for other health problems.
It all began on the last day of the school year. I began to experience a thump in my chest every so often during school. I thought it was nothing so I continued about my day. When I returned home from school and relaxed I felt the thumps more and more frequent. Then i realized that when i felt my chest, I felt my heart skip a beat! I got freaked out and jumped on the computer and typed "heart skipping a beat" and gave me a list on PVC's and PAC's. I read some of the articles and found out that one of the causes is too much caffeine intake. Then i thought back and realized that I drank coke and sweet tea all week! (My school has open campus where students can leave campus and eat at fast food restaurants, ext.) I remember one day going to Dunkin' Donuts and drinking a large sweet tea, then going to Burger King and drinking a LARGE Dr.Pepper! But I drank Dr.Pepper and sweet tea 5 days straight! Knowing this, I decided to cease caffeine intake all together.
3 days later, I didn't feel any palpitations anymore! I felt much better and continued on for the next week, however, I was still avoiding caffeine.
Then, a week later on Friday night THUMP!!!! I was having those thumps frequently when I woke up laying on the bed trying to go back to sleep. They scared the living daylights out of me, so I stayed awake for a while until finally falling asleep. That next week, I was scared and worried, the PVC's occuring at a frequent rate. I was always looking up my symptoms online checking for possible causes trying to calm myself down still scared.
Well, it's been a little more than 2 weeks as of now. If I can describe my PVC's it would be that there a are a couple of thumps (not consecutively), then no thumps for a short while, and then a couple of non consecutive thumps. When I exercise they seem to completely go away (except for once when I saw these group of guys that scared me I felt a thump) but exercise sometimes helps get rid of them for a while even after. I only feel these PVC's while I am sitting or laying down. I've been learning how to ignore them but they're annoying :(. I had a 12oz Dr.Pepper on Sunday but It didn't affect my PVC frequency at all. Sometimes at rest I used to feel fluttering, but not anymore for some reason.
Im sorry this is kinda long but It's just that I've never had this problem in my entire life. I used to feel these PVC thumps before this but VERY rarely. I haven't gone to the doctor yet, but I plan on doing so at least before school starts again. I haven't told my mom about this either. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS CAUSING THIS!
I just have a couple of questions. Is there any way I can reduce my symptoms in the meantime? Could my PVC's be benign? Is there anything I can do to calm myself down? Please, and thank you! I'm sort of new to this.