Feeling Like Heart is Kicking Me When Sitting

Hello All,

I wanted to post my issue here and see if I can get some community wisdom around possible suggestions on what it could be, or to confirm my best theory around it.

The problem that I am encountering appears to occur when I am in a sitting position, which is basically all day when I am working. This does not seem to occur when I am lying down or standing up. If I am completely honest, it might occur during these times, but at a completely reduced intensity, at a point where I feel I am making it up/seeing ghosts for a lack of better expression. I have noticed this for a couple of years now, let's call it 3, and it seems to go away, but recently it has returned and seems to have stuck for good, to the point that I want to track it down and get a good diagnosis for it.

For further context, I am a 44-year old male and have recently lost 40lbs. What's interesting is that I did not notice this issue when I had the extra weight. That is, this issue seems to have gotten worse with the more weight that I have lost, which is perplexing to me.

The issue is that when I am sitting down, I seem to feel a kicking sensation from my heartbeat, and it feels like it's in my back, but affects my upper body. At its worst, it will almost give me motion sickness and invoke a headache, although this is rare.

Further, it seems this sensation occurs while I am breathing, and seems to occur around the time when I have completely exhaled, either breathing in or out. Around this time, it simply feels like I am getting kicked by my heart, and it feels like this is occurring in the area towards my back. What's frustrating is that there isn't an exact time that I can reproduce this. It "just happens" and is annoying. This doesn't appear to occur when I am completely exhaled. That is, when I completely exhale and do not breathe back in I do not feel this issue. Of course, I cannot hold this very long but during this time the "kick" does not seem to occur. So, there's that. It seems like it happens during an active breath when I am sitting, and when I am at the point of being exhaled, either going in or going out.

For further background, I have had an EKG done and I do have a right-bundle-branch-block detected. I am wondering if this is resulting from this, which I have been told by cardiologists is a benign condition.

Additionally, I had an echocardiogram done in February, and everything looks fine there. What prompted the echocardiogram was that I was having an irregular heartbeat occurring when I laid down. When I say "irregular heartbeat" I mean the BPMs were the same (around 40-50), but I would get a "double" beat per instance. It freaked me out BIG time! It was like having a heart attack without any pain or additional symptoms. It turns out that this was occurring because I was taking 2x 500mg Naproxen (so 1g) for over 4 days, I want to call it, for headaches (migraines). I did not know this was the culprit at the time, but I had this occur again in July and I was also on Naproxen for 4+ days and it was then that I connected the dots. I stopped the Naproxen then and have never had a problem since then so that appears to explain that scary incident for me. Although it is very concerning that I can "trick" my heart into such a condition with a simple intake of what is supposed to be a painkiller. It makes me wonder if there's another latent/unidentified issue here.

Anyway, on to my best theory on what is happening here with my annoying condition here. My best guess for my mystery annoyance is that I have a compressed nerve at the base of my neck. It was discovered in my 20s and was told that it could lead to problems in the future. I am thinking that when I sit down, it puts pressure upon it in a way that is making these sensations occur. When I had more weight, the extra fat was "protecting" my nerve, and upon losing weight it has exposed the nerve/configuration in such a way that it is causing these sensations.

Consequently, my thought is that if I continue to lose weight, it will further reconfigure my neck in a way where this will go away. That's a joyous/optimistic thought, I know! That's my theory at least. It's just weird that I didn't have this at a higher weight but now it's all that happens at a lower weight.

In any case, I am focused/committed to my weight loss. I used to be 180lbs in my 30s and that's where I am aiming for again. With the pandemic, I have gotten a pretty good routine and works pretty well when I stick to it. I am hoping that losing the additional weight will further reduce any pressure in my configuration to reduce/alleviate/rid of this annoying guest. In the meantime, I wanted to "get this out there" to see if there is anything else to possibly be aware of and/or consider. FWIW, I did mention this to my doctor but we are focused now on my blood pressure, which is a whole other ball of wax (please see the thread on Weening off Metoprolol for further details).

Alright, there you go. I think I got all the facts out there. I feel like this is a confession, LOL. It's nice to be able to write all of this out in detail as it is very difficult to do with a busy and involved 20-minute session with the doctor. In any case, thank you to any out there for any insight/suggestions you can provide.