Dear all,

I'm Jon - 31 y/o male from the US. I'm not sure if this is the right forum to put this in, so moderators please forgive me. I am desperate for some help/guidance/reassurance.

I am a lifelong anxiety sufferer with severe panic attacks who was very overweight as a child and has now for the last decade or so been very fit due to long-term endurance exercise (high-intensity stationary cycling for at least 60 minutes nearly 5 or more days a week). I did drop nearly underweight at one point (I am 5'11' and was 135 lbs) but now I am around 150 lbs and my eating troubles have mainly balanced out for the last few years (this all pertains to my heart, just stick with me).

When I was overweight, I suffered from formally diagnosed PVCs by my cardiologist. They were sudden onset, sporadic, and constantly on/off for months on end. After starting my rigorous exercise regime many years ago, they have literally disappeared. Instead, I was now diagnosed with chronic PACs which seem to also have had a similar onset (sudden, no rhyme or reason, happening even while sleeping, etc.). I also am starting to experience these more often upon exertion, which has prompted me to visit my cardio quite a few times to run an insane amounts of tests (holters, event monitors, stress echoes, ekgs, bloodwork, even a highly invasive CAT scan with dye of the coronary arteries). I always complain of chest pain and bizarre cardiac symptoms, chronic shortness of breath even when not doing anything, for years on end now, but nothing seems to show up. I'm afraid I've been "labeled" so to speak, and that my distress is not being taken seriously (especially coupled with the fact I am someone who works out constantly and doesn't seem to "drop dead" doing it regardless of how I feel).

Fast forward to around two months ago - my symptoms were getting progressively worse and I was starting to not even want to leave the house. I was feeling very hopeless, and my psychiatrist and talk therapist were not helping as by this point I was convinced this was something organic they just can't see or pinpoint. I was prescribed Xanax .25-.5 mg for the panic attacks, but admittedly, it does very little for my physical symptoms and just numbs me (it doesn't even really do that anymore, and I rarely ever take it).

My aging mother suddenly fell in late November. She nearly died and needed an entire shoulder reconstruction surgery at a hospital in NYC (where I reside). I am her primary caretaker and her only child, so the entire burden fell on me and my fiance to keep things going at home. As I do not work (mostly due from anxiety, but also because I do some side work from home), this wasn't the end of the world on most fronts, except when it came to my mental health. I have rarely wanted to leave the house for a long while now, even since before my mother fell (still from the fear of dying in public from a heart problem). I stopped exercising out of symptoms getting worse, and though I tried to keep up with my very regular and vigorous routine, it was getting harder and harder.

Suddenly, things took a turn for the worst. I came down with severe flu (even with the flu shot!) and needed to be hospitalized for 2 days (I passed out at one point with a BP of 60/40 - they said severe dehydration from 103 Fahrenheit fever). Immediately, my heart problems got worse. Throughout the entire sickness, my pulse was racing. I attributed this to the fever and prayed for the best. 2 weeks after the bout, the heart rate came down, so I decided to go back to exercising. On Christmas night, I did my usual workout after a couple of test workouts earlier in the week. My heart rate shot to 130. It never came down. I was sent to the ER via ambulance, and the doctors did absolutely nothing. They monitored me for about 2 hours, and as soon as the heart rate went down to about 89, they threw me out and sent me home. I told them I wasn't comfortable with this, as my baseline numbers are usually VERY low (considering how much cardio I do). I knew something was very off, but they didn't want to hear it at all.

That brings me to this week. My heart has been pounding and consistently elevated for days on end. I went back to the ER yesterday with a pulse of 130 BPM after waking up with horrendous PACs. I nearly passed out again in the ER. The doctors took 2 ECGs and a bedside echo. They said I was panicking and needed Xanax. They proceeded to give me 1 mg of Xanax and 25 mg of Atarax. I was knocked out in a way I've never been before (I'm a firm believer in being good to our bodies, so I do not drink or do drugs of ANY KIND, ever, at all.) I am not used to this sort of sedation. I was out for 3 hours. The whole time my pulse stayed in the 90s and blood pressure was 130/89. Again, they sent me home saying I was "nuts" and to follow up with an electrophysiologist (if they can even help me, cause no one is convinced I actually have an arrhythmia). I have an appointment for as soon as possible, but I'm literally disabled at this point. If I do anything, my heart rate spikes to over 100. I have to sit still to keep it under 100. Every doctor I call keeps saying its anxiety, including my psychiatrist. They keep throwing Xanax at me, which now out of desperation I am taking, but it really isn't doing anything at all except keeping me from going back to that scary ER (which based on the American medical system, might ACTUALLY be a fate worse than death, but that's a whole other story). I've been advised to just hope things get better and "pretend like its not there."

Has anyone ever experienced anything quite like this? I feel so demeaned, hurt, scared, and broken by people who truly do NOT understand and claim they are there to do work for others' safety. Even the EMS who showed up here at my house to take me to the ER treated me like I wasn't a person. My parents and fiance (who is a psychotherapist herself and doesn't think these are somatic symptoms!) are devastated and don't even know what to do. This doesn't feel like anxiety. I've struggled my whole life with panic disorder and never have I ever experienced symptoms so obvious, empirical, dangerous, yet I'm being told it's all in my head.

Sorry for the long post, and any help or just some kind words would mean everything to me.

Thank you with all my heart,

Jon1821 In NYC