Deep Breaths and Missed beats

[Typer]

Doogie, I cant remember where I saw a similar story, but I did and the person said it all began with neck problems. Thinking the vagus nerve runs through the neck. Have you seen a pic of it...you may be onto something there.

this is only a little picture on a site with lots of interesting info on vagus nerve and depression

http://www.riversideonline.com/healt...th/MH00113.cfm

[Typer]

There is a part that talks of side effects of vagus nerve stimulation but guess it can work backwards too


"The vagus nerve serves as a primary communication pathway between your brain and such major organs as your heart, lungs and intestines. There's one vagus nerve on each side of your body. The nerve runs from your brainstem through your neck and down to your chest and abdomen. Information travels through this nerve to and from your central nervous system."


Common side effects and adverse health problems associated with vagus nerve stimulation include:

Voice changes
Hoarseness
Cough
Neck pain
Breathing problems, especially during exercise
Difficulty swallowing
Tingling or prickling of the skin
Sore throat"

[Typer]

If you are not squeamish here you can see a picture of the vagus nerve in the neck under operation

http://www.ghorayeb.com/VNSvagusNerveExposure.html

[DoogieJ]

Might check later when I'm not eating!

But in regards to the symptoms you posted above, that is scarily similar to what I was experiencing for about a month early this year. I was worried I had MND at one point, that's how bad a hypochondriac I am. Was stood in front of the mirror watching myself swallow.

I had a hoarse voice, swallowing was a problem (felt like not everything went down in one go), I had a lot of neck pain, but this was pain down the sides of my neck and right under the jaw. The same pain when you yawn too hard and your jaw cramps up.

Wasn't sure if I was getting reflux larygintis because that can give a hoarse voice too.

[DoogieJ]

had a fun session this evening....ate from a chocolate fountain at a work thing...chocolate and profiterolls (how do you spell that?) and sausage rolls...

Then 90 minutes later I went for a jog...oh that wasn't fun, had three missed beats and stomach felt like a brick in it...all I can guess is the stomach bouncing up and down was hitting the vagus nerve and causing the beats to skip...there was no pain and I'm fine now, just a bit discomforting while jogging.

Anyone else have that?

[NeverRelaxed]

Sorry if this has been asked before, been reading down the pages and couldn't find this particular problem.

Let me give a bit of history. Was diagnosed with ectopic beats in 1999 aged 22. These stayed relatively benign, I'd get occasional ones but not care.

In 2007 something changed and I started to notice them more and started getting strange sensations around my heart.

Since then I have have 4 ECGS, 2 24 hour Holter Monitors, and seen 2 cardiologist. Been diagnosed with 1/6 heart murmur (so not worrying) and general palpitations probably due to anxiety. Everything was physiological (working as intended).

Now all this should help me relax, but I still have phases where it I don't. Recently I have found if I take a deep breath I can trigger a harder heart beat, sometimes a total missed beat.

It feels like I have trapped air at the top of my stomach, so the expansion of the lungs from the deep breath plus bloating from the stomach pushes into the heart's area meaning it has less space to work and so will perform an erratic beat. Does this sound viable?

When I burp or try to release trapped air I can feel a lot of vibrations in my left rib cage. After burping I feel better for a while til it builds up again.

Drinking peppermint tea to try and help the bloating.

I also get the hard heart beat occasionally during sport, when I'm jogging it will pop out of nowhere, and make me go light headed for a second, but I put that down to anxiety too.

And since I play in goal I feel occasional weird beats when I'm twisted about saving footballs. Again I wonder if that's because I'm not in a normal position and so my heart is having to work harder to do it's normal job against the weight of my body.

I've found it's limiting my lifestyle a bit, and I'm avoiding things that I know will stress me out. I try and feel the fear and do it anyway, but a lot of times I can't totally relax and can't wait til I get home. I know this is GAD.

But anyway, just wondering if anyone else gets what I get too.


And hello

yes. Its called a sinus arrhythmia....My cardio said its not considered abnormal and it is more noticable in younger people...Mine is slightly exaggerated he said..He said it might be accounting for some of the zaps of lightheadedness I experience...

[DoogieJ]

Well it's been a month since I posted this, and all I can say is, what a difference a month makes. In that month I had 5 sessions of counselling and within that had 3 sessions of hypnotherapy. Also I read the link that Typer posted and spoke to RLR. Due to all of that I seem to have unwound immensely, it's amazing.

I'm still getting missed beats, but nowhere near as many. I think I've had one this week, can't remember when though. I don't panic as much, the hypnotherapy seems to have severed the link between my brain and adrenaline glands that caused me to panic and give more missed beats. I understand now how much of a factor the Vagus nerve is, and it's is so obvious how often my missed beats occur due to my digestion irritating it.

With answers comes reason, and with reason comes calm. I think most of us can say that, we want to know WHY?!?!? these things are happening, it's part of our nature.

I also joined a Gym and jog/cycle/swim three times a week there. This also helps as I know my heart can cope, the machines tell you what your heart rate is up to, and even at 172bpm it behaves itself. I get the odd flutter, but then I burp and I know it's the vagus nerve and digestion.


So all in all I can see my issues were due to anxiety and indigestion. Not life threatening.