So I’ve decided to document what I have gone through living with heart arrythmia for almost 50 years now. It’s a bit of a roller coaster ride as usual…. so let’s go back in time to when I was cocky confident in life….
Warning.. this is a long… impulsive ramble.
If people had to describe me from ages 8-18, they would probably say I was out going, crazy, a bit of a jerk, perhaps a bit egotistical, maybe even funny. But they wouldn’t describe me as reserved, shy, etc. All that changed when I was 19 years old.
Around the time when I was 18 I had gained some weight, so I decided to go on a heavy workout regime that included a lot of tennis (I actually got pretty good!), jogging every morning, pumping some weights, etc. I also read about a diet fad that was basically grapefruit and tuna. I was attracted to this diet because I had read it greatly increased metabolism. I was extremely ignorant to supplements back then, so I go on this frickin grapefruit and tuna diet and the weight just melts off of me so quickly. Keep in mind, I’m extremely physically active as well. I end up losing probably most if not all of my body fat, I am extremely lean for my build. I wasn’t taking any vitamins or supplements. Long story short… and I remember this day exactly as it happened.
I’m watching TV with my Dad, just kicking back, and I feel this incredibly fast pulsating in my chest. I have NO idea what this is. For some reason I start feeling like I’m about to explode. I tell my dad.. “I think my heart is beating fast!” He tells me to calm down, I try to. I go up to my room and lay down trying to relax, but now everything seems out of whack, I don’t know what the hell is happening. I am literally freaking out. My mom gets home and we go to the hospital.
At the hospital I’m all amped up… obviously I’m having a panic attack. They put me on a heart monitor and I’ll never forget this…. it says my heart is beating over 300 beats a minute. The doctor looks at me and yells… “calm down!”. Tells me to breath deeply and slowly, etc, etc. I end up calming down and my heart rate slows down to a normal pulse. They refer me to a cardiologist and send me home.
For the next few days before going to the cardiologists I start experiencing these thuds in my chest, like I’m getting punched from the inside out. These are scaring me more than anything because I have no idea what these are.
The cardiologist does some tests and says it looks like I had a heart attack. They put me in the hospital and do a variety of tests. Everything checks out ok, my heart is structurally sound. They said I might have a heart murmur and possibly a heart block. Then they put me through a stress test. I thought I was going to pass this no problem because I had been playing tennis, jogging, etc, every day for the past 6 months or so. So while I’m on the stress test tread mill, they ramp up the speed. About 15 minutes into it, I start having those jumps in my chest. Yep…they’re showing up on the EKG as well. I said “there it is!!!”. They calmly say those 3 magic letters that change my life forever. “Oh! you’re having a few PVCs.” – Pre Ventricular Contractions. Hey.. at least I was happy that the people treating me were able to see what I was dealing with. The final conclusion they tell me before being released from the hospital, was my heart was structurally sound but my electrical pulses were a bit off causing arrythmia. They said “at the worst, come back and see me when you’re 60 and you may need a pacemaker.” Interesting… lol..
So all the above went down in probably about 2 weeks. They end up putting me on some strong beta blockers. It literally turns me into a slow moving, sluggish, zombie. I have zero motivation to do anything. I take myself off the meds after about 2-3 months and to this day… I have never taken any heart meds since. Looking back at my life… maybe I should have.
So now my mind and body is having a hard time dealing with the fact that my heart isn’t normal. I start learning more and more about PVCs, it consumes me and I start having panic attacks at the slightest movement in my chest. I try to hang out with my tennis buds, but I start having PVCs when I’m playing, the panic attack starts and I have to quit. My social life starts to dwindle down to nothing. I’m now a full introvert. I’m afraid to go anywhere because of what might happen. I end up going to several ERs over the next year or so. Every time they say my heart is ok but I’m having PVCs. They suggest beta blockers I say no way.
So my music career is now gone because a dude with heart problems and panic attacks can’t be part of a band. I had always liked computers and I was already doing a bit of programming but now that I was a full fledged hypochondriac introvert I could get some comfort from staying inside and doing a bit of programming, which was the start of well… my career. lol..
So looking back, knowing what I know now, wtf happened to me?
That grapefruit and tuna diet caused me to lose a ton of weight quickly. And since I was not taking any vitamins or supplements, I’m sure my electrolyte levels were dangerously low which lead me to have some kind of “heart event”. Possibly a mild heart attack, possibly a small tear in my heart. Later in life I would be diagnosed with a hole right in the middle of my heart but no evidence of a major heart attack.
I met my future wife at 21 years old. At that time I was handling my PVCs a little better but I was still having massive panic attacks. I hid those from her as much as possible. She didn’t really get to see those massive panic attacks until she moved in with us.
Man.. those panic attacks in my 20s and 30s were so bad. I would run around screaming “I’m going to die!” My heart would be beating so fast. It would all start with a thud (big PVC…) followed by a few small PVCs, I would get so scared, my adrenaline would surge so quickly. ugh.. just thinking of those early episodes unnerves me a bit to this day.
An interesting but not healthy thing happened. In my late 20s or so I started eating bad, because now that I don’t ever hardly go out of the house, I end up programming more and more and my brain is loving all these delicious carbs. lol.. But to my surprise the PVCs start to calm down a bit. Instead of daily episodes, I’m now getting a bit of a reprieve from PVCs and panic attacks. I’m able to start doing a few things outside the house more often. I’m still having panic attacks monthly, I’m still getting PVCs daily but not those real strong ones anymore. Now keep in mind, I’m still very ignorant when it comes to vitamins and supplements at this point in my life. But I’m starting to feel much better! Long story short… this is the start of my massive weight gain.
Looking back… I have no idea why gaining some weight suppressed my PVCs. But this cycle of gaining and losing would continue for a bit and every time I gained some weight, I didn’t feel the PVCs as strong so I kept on eating. Maybe I was on sugar high all the time and just didn’t care. lol.. It was truly a bizarre unhealthy time for me.
Why I let myself gain so much weight is crazy… but for some reason the more weight I gained the less heart arrythmias I would have! My computer career was off and running big time. I was coding 18-20 hours a day! Sure I would have days where I would have an episode, and I would still get a panic attack from all that adrenaline my body seems to over produce. But I was able to live! We would go out to eat, I was fishing once in a while, we had 3 kids, money was rolling in, life was good!
Through out my 30s and 40s I would end up gaining…. 300lbs or more. My max weight was recorded at 550lbs, but the scale we used bottomed out at 550 so I could have weighed more.
One day I took a walk to get the mail and I couldn’t make it to the mail box without heavy breathing. I was like…wth is this? This triggered a realization that I was morbidly obese. Looking back I was probably close to dying. The photos of me back then are very…very scary and downright horrible to look at. I may post a few of those at some point when I document my weight loss journey.
But during that massive weight gain (and money making!) period, for some reason I felt so much better. I wasn’t having as many PVCs or panic attacks. So I just kept on eating…and eating. But after that walk to the mailbox I knew something was wrong.
We end up buying a scale to weight myself. I remember thinking.. meh.. I probably only gained 50-100lbs. I could lose those pounds very fast, hell… I did it when I was younger. But to my horror over the course of probably 10-15 years I had gained 300lbs… or more.
I’ll save the weight loss story for another time, but I start to eat better. Takes time.. but I kick the soda and sugar addictions. I start to lose some weight. But as luck would have it, seems like the healthier I get, the more weight I lose, the more those fking PVCs starting happening again.
I’m in my late 30s maybe early 40s now, and I make the decision I would rather live with the PVCs than die early from having a massive heart attack from being so morbidly obese. So I continue to try to eat healthy and lose weight. But still.. those frickin PVCs are in full force again. But now I decide to finally…. start doing some research about PVCs.
I find out that electrolyte imbalances can cause PVCs to flair up. I visit a local health vitamin store and luckily the dude helping me knew what PVCs were. He gives me a few supplements, I take them and long story short.. after a few months… the PVCs almost go away completely. wow…
I’m feeling so much better! I’ve lost a bit of weight, I’m more active, I want to be in a band again! Hell yah! I even end up fronting a band as the lead singer! But… unfortunately that was a bit short lived and never really got off the ground, but it was fun to sing again. The reason it never went anywhere… I’m embarrassed to say, but I couldn’t remember all the words to all the songs, I would end up using a stand with printed lyrics on it. The guys in the band were cool with it, but after seeing all the local bands with their lead singers all super thin, no lyrics stand, etc, I decided my days of fronting a band were never going to happen. But dang…we sounded pretty good. I had one of the best local DFW guitarists in the band. Man…we sounded pretty good to be honest!
So instead…. let’s get back to banging on those drums! 🙂 lol… So I would start playing the drums in a band again, had some good times and a few bad times, but it was very cool. We even played live on Dallas’s biggest TV morning show! 🙂 I may try to find a video of that at some point. hmm….
So yah..in my 40s I’m feeing much better, sure I still have PVCs but the panic attacks are probably only happening a few times a year. I’m playing drums in a band! Looking back I would still have PVCs while performing in front of sometimes 1000s of people! But I’m convinced those were from all the excitement of being on stage causing a massive adrenaline rush. I did the band thing for a few years, but my coding career took a dive so I decided to get back to work.
Playing the drums helped me burn off all that anxiety and control the PVCs. I would go on to learn that my heart performs much better when I exercise. This is common with people who have PVCs.
But because of the mental stress I put myself through from the age of 19 to probably my late 30s… I ended up missing out on a lot of life in that period. I stayed at home too much because I was scared I would have PVCs and a panic attack in public. It was hard on my wife. For the most part we hid it from the kids, but as they got older they knew something was different about their Dad.
I started playing disc golf in my late 40s. This was the catalyst that jump started my health and my weight loss. I was much more focused on my health. I started eating a low carb diet, weight lifting, disc golf 3-4 times a week. It took some time some time, but I would end up losing those 300lbs! Without surgery & without drugs!
In my late 40s and early 50s I finally came to an understanding and acceptance of my health. The PVCs never completely went away, neither did the panic attacks. But I finally knew that yah… I’m going to die someday, but it won’t be from those frickin PVCs.
As I’ve probably stated a few times in this blog, I’m convinced some people have an over active fight or flight system causing a massive adrenaline rush when presented with a stressful situation. That’s where those beta blockers I’ve been “supposed to be on” my entire life probably would have helped me.
So in my late 50s and early 60s I’m easily at the healthiest I’ve ever been. But I still have the PVCs and even the panic attacks happen from time to time. But they are much easier to deal with and they last only a minute or so compared to the 30+ min ones that plagued me in the past.
I frequently tell people about my experience with PVCs in various social media groups. How much they have consumed me due to the anxiety from hyper focusing on them so much. I tell them to focus on your electrolytes, mainly potassium and magnesium. Get some exercise and eat a healthy diet. And most of all… don’t hyper focus on your health!
For most people PVCs are triggered by something. In my case I’m 100% convinced I had a heart event when I was 19 that possibly damaged my heart just enough to cause a lasting electrical imbalance in my heart that causes my arrythmia and PVCs. In my 40s I had my gallbladder removed and the pre op tests confirmed I had a small hole right in the middle of my heart. Even though they said I was probably born with the defect, I’m pretty sure I know how it happened. 😉
According to an AI result…
“A small hole in the middle of your heart, often referred to as a ventricular septal defect (VSD), can potentially lead to various complications, including irregular heart rhythms like premature ventricular contractions (PVCs). “
I had an operation last year (2024) to repair 2 hernias, one in my groin and one from the gallbladder surgery years ago. The doc said it was common for gallbladder surgery to cause a weakness over time which can turn into a hernia. I had this abdominal (near the gallbladder surgery) hernia diagnosed a year earlier but I decided to put off surgery until I was mentally ready. The doc said it wasn’t vital to have it done.
In 2023 I would play disc golf and always have to push some of my guts back in after every throw. Yah… it was insane but I could live with it. But the groin hernia was very new. One day I get out of the shower and there’s this big golf ball sized lump just above my penis, and I instantly assume I have some kind of tumor. Long story short…. 2 hernias and 1 long operation.
So before my hernia operation, and pretty much all of my life, my PVCs were pretty much the same. I would get the big thud once in a while or a few smaller ones, a rush of adrenaline, maybe a panic attack and that’s that. But something happened after the surgery which I’ve been dealing with the past year.
While I still get the normal PVCs, a new arrythmia has shown up the past year off and on. It feels more like pressure then my heart pauses (skips a beat) and continues. Trust me, these still feel much easier to deal with compared to the big thuds. lol.. These new arrythmias seem to be tied more to my stomach and what I eat and how much. Before the surgery I have been intermittent fasting, eating one meal a day for years. But now it seems like the less in my stomach the less arrythmias I have. After a lot of research it sounds like I may have Gastrocardiac Syndrome.
Gastrocardiac syndrome symptoms include heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, and chest pain, all triggered by digestive issues like excessive gas and bloating. These symptoms are due to a nerve reflex, where the vagus nerve transmits impulses from the stomach to the heart, causing the heart muscles to be stimulated.
I have read where sometimes a hernia mesh can stimulate the vagus nerve which can trigger heart arrythmia. That it can also take months, years, for the mesh and the vagus nerve to get a long together nicely. Maybe… ?
I started taking 450-800mg of Magnesium Glycinate daily (spread out through the day) a few months after my surgery and for the most part the results have been awesome. It has given me a more overall calmness, definitely has minimized my panic attacks, and has reduced my heart arrythmias. I’ve been supplementing a variety of vitamins for a long time and had been taking magnesium before, but I was taking the wrong one. The Magnesium Glycinate has honestly been a game changer for me.
As I write this, I am 62 years old, and have not taken any prescribed medicine since I was 19. (Except for when I had my surgeries.) I used to be proud of that statement, but now writing this, looking back perhaps I could have taken a less powerful beta blocker? Maybe it would have helped me with all of my anxiety? Maybe I should have been put on some kind of anxiety drug? I know I need to go to the doctor and get a complete updated check up of the old ticker. But the thought of taking drugs or getting a pace maker put in… ugh… just not something I want to go through. Every time I work out, play disc golf, etc, I hardly feel any arrythmia and I feel great! This physical activity helps suppress the PVCs due to the heart working stronger. I know my heart is frickin strong, I wouldn’t be able to play disc golf (today!) for 3-4 hours in the Texas heat walking up/down hills, etc, etc. Maybe I just need to stay active. lol.. But father time eventually catches up with all of us. 😉
As I mentioned earlier, I’m part of a social media group about heart arrythmia and PVCs. It’s been amazing the past year or so learning that I’m not alone and that so many people suffer from the same thing and have almost identical mental stress and anxiety. So many young people, about the same age as I was, talking about their first experiences with PVCs and how it freaks them out and makes them think they are going to die. But it’s also insane that a lot of these kids are drinking caffeine, energy drinks, smoking, etc, etc. But then I see people my own age who also have been dealing with these all their lives and what they have gone through. Some people have heart arrythmias much worse than I do. It always makes a bit sad to read their stories because it’s obvious how much of a toll the mental stress and anxiety takes on them. It’s also a bit frustrating to understand that after almost 50 years, modern medicine still doesn’t have a handle on PVCs and there really is no 100% cure for them via medicine, surgery or supplements!
Looking back at my life… there is no doubt…. the self imposed mental stress and anxiety has taken it’s toll on my health way more than these frickin heart arrythmias and PVCs. 😉
August 23, 2025
