Hello!
Yes to the first three questions and to the fourth I can't really answer that because it's not a simple question.
But all of those apply to me - you can get any combination of ectopics and fast heart rates when you are suffering from stress or anxiety. Or indeed if your ectopics are related to digestive issues. But even that seems to be a bit of a question - the digestive issues could indeed in the first place be aggravated by the stress or anxiety - so it's all chicken and egg.

the best thing you can do is work on accepting that if your doctors have said not to worry, then you are clear and safe from any dangerous event occuring because of the ectopics.

Many of us have been there - A&E, calling out an ambulance terrified, but nothing has happened to any of us

Having three young children certainly ups the pressure for lots of us. Concentrate on enjoying your little ones when you have time, and rest assured you can do what you like - run around with them, push them on their bikes, and nothing is going to happen as a result of the ectopics. Honestly, I've had these things for years now.

Keep reading the many helpful posts on here if you ever need to be reminded.

bead

Okay, welcome to the forum and I've read your posting and concerns.

Your symptoms would be inconsistent with Sick Sinus Syndrome, but alternatively highly consistent with other persons experiencing significant anxiety and/or stress. Realize that at certain levels, stress and apprehension induces very particular physiological changes, the nature of which are most often misinterpreted by those experiencing such changes as symptoms of an underlying problem.

Benign palpitations of the type you are experiencing are nothing more than wayward impulses induced by the vagus nerve as an unwanted part of its role in the parasympathetic nervous system. These particular events are roughly the equivalent of a muscle twitch elsewhere in the body that is also induced by wayward nerve impulse, except in the instance of benign palpitations, the muscle is in fact the heart. It's very critical for you to understand the extremely distant nature of benign palpitations of the type I describe, in contrast to arrhythmias associated with underlying pathology. There is no association between these two events whatsoever and one cannot transform into the other. Vagus nerve-induced palpitations are forever benign and can no more undergo transformation than a farm hen can become an ape. They are from entirely different origins and share no common route to any further extent.

Your health phobias, like those of most all persons who suffer them, arise from misperceptions about your health and physiology, most often making inaccurate assumptions based upon information gathered which you feel is relevant, but which in fact bears no actual association at all. The other element which introduces the sort of compelling drive to seek out a problem which does not exist has to do with the brain responding in a very particular way to certain apprehensions and perceptions which indicate that one's survival might be at risk. If a threat of such magnitude arises but yet cannot be identified and logically interpreted as within the realm of safety, the brain will literally compel the individual to seek safety and to overcome the threat which is so proximal. In practice, this unfolds as the individual continually seeks diagnostic evaluation for what they perceive to be present, but in actuality constitutes something entirely different and holds no premise of threat to the individual's life. In other words, people most often associate benign vagus nerve-induced palpitations as signs of serious cardiac problems of a nature than can cause their demise. It is of such perceived consequence that they feel urged to obtain tests upon tests with the same sort of compelling drive associated with gamblers who feel that the jackpot lies within the next hand of cards, spin of the roulette wheel or pull on the handle of the one-armed bandit. Likewise, the discovery of the underlying cause will be revealed in the next medical test, to which it remained undetected in all such similar or lesser tests.

The actual fact is that the problem started at the level of perception and meaning of the event and nothing to do with the event itself. In your mind, your health remains at risk because what you interpret to be "symptoms" will not abate. If everything would only return to normal, then you could come down from such high alert status and vigilance to represent the cessation of symptoms as a sign that all is well once again. The life you feel has made a detour five years ago has actually never derailed at all. It is only by your perceptions that such distance has been imparted from a normal life. What you believe to be health risks are nothing more than misinterpretations that you have become bound to as fact, when in actuality they constitute no health risk whatsoever.

You're going to be just fine. You'll begin to see as you spend more time here examining the plights of others with circumstances similar to your own that a very common theme exists. We'll talk more, but for now the take-away message is for you to take a deep breath and relax because what has been happening is not related to actual changes in your health status at all, but rather merely to your interpretations of that status as it relates to manifestations being entirely misunderstood and alternatively being erroneously associated with various illnesses, disorders and diseases by virtue of perceived common references.

In other words, you've got it all wrong.

Best regards,


Rutheford Rane, MD (ret.)

I would like to add to my prev post by asking a couple questions that may or may not be related to the vagus nerve and how it induces benign ectopics.

1.  Does the vagus nerve become irritated by the adrenaline caused by the fight or flight response during a panic attack? Or is it caused by some other factor?

2.  Can a long term over activation of the sympathetic nervous system (via long term anxiety or stress) cause a shut down effect on the sns and take over by the parasympathetic slowing things down in an attempt to balance overall nervous system activity?  I ask because my resting heart rate used to always be above 100 before I started getting ectopics,  Now my resting heart rate is always under 80bpm, and I notice that ordinary stressors do not increase heart rate as it once did.  But during a full blown panic attack my heart rate will still climb to 180 like it always had, accept now is ALWAYS occampanied by frequent ectopics.

3.  I notice that if I get extremely emotional over an argument between me and my wife I will get ectopics.  Is this the vagus nerve also Via (adrenaline, or something other)?  Also EVERY time I exercise I get them.

4. Basically can long term stress cause a total shift in the autonomic nervous system?  I know I used to be sympathetic dominant but things definately have changed....

5.  What else can stimulate the vagus nerve?

Thanks to all I really , really hope someone can reply.  And thanks again RLR for your prev response ..