Hello all,
I'm a frequent visitor to the forums but I don't post often. My one issue in the past was quite a high resting pulse, which baffled my doctors but seems to have resolved. I figure it was due to increased sympathetic tone, unresolved anxiety, just so much so that I didn't even realize I was anxious. Crazy times. Anyway, here's my question, and it kind of comes from 11th grade anatomy. For the longest time I've been able to feel a pulse at the very base of the my neck, kind of in that notch between your collarbones. Always seemed normal to me, but I was thinking about it the other day and couldn't figure out which artery it would be that would generate this pulse. The aortic arch was below this notch and I thought shouldn't be palpable, but I also thought that the carotids came off more to the sides before they connected to the aortic arch. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I've got a history of anxiety and as such whenever I'm getting all nutso my pulses race and bound like the Kentucky Derby, but sadly since I thought of this I haven't been able to keep my mind off of the pulsation; I guess my worries would be that something is causing the aorta to pulse up there like an aneurysm or something, but not only and I only 22 years old but I refuse to google such things as this really just turns you into the worst kind of hypochondriac - I've been down that road and it's no bueno. I'm also overweight (working on it, already lost a bunch!) so that made the pulsing suprising to me to. Anyway, this is a really great forum so I thought I'd throw it out there, especially to RLR, whose explanation of things are very reassuring and most helpful. During my phase of high resting pulse I did have an echocardiogram and the guy stuck the transducer right in that notch and presumably didn't see anything, so I'm trying not to worry. At the very least solidarity in numbers would be appreciated...anyone else feel what I'm talking about, this strange pulse at the base of your neck?

Thanks all!