I'm a 31 year old male, and I have been suffering from anxiety for about 10 years now. I was constantly focused on my health, more specifically my heart and I basically match the whole definition of 'cardiophobia'.

I managed my anxiety pretty well by exercising the last couple of years. I wasn't perfect but things were going rather smoothly as I was getting fitter. That is, until I went for my second covid jab and I read up on negative side effects, albeit rare, regarding the heart. I still went for my second jab but I was scared shitless, It felt, completely irrationally, as if I was playing russian roulette and I would be the one to get the rare heart condition. 

For weeks after I was on edge, despite not having any bad side effects from the jab itself except for some mild fever  the day after. I didn't exercise for about 9 days as was recommended and when I started swimming again I felt like something was off. I wasn't focused and relaxed during my workouts, I was nervous as hell throughout. I started getting breathless and hyperventilating towards the end of my session which somehow in my brain clicked with the rare heart condition stuff. After a while I even started getting heart palpitations again, something I dealt with in the past and got checked out for, but they came back with a vengeance.

Things have gotten worse since then. Exercising slowly but surely was harder and harder until I can't even break a sweat now anymore. I get these skipped beats while walking up stairs, playing with my son is extremely stressful as I get these adrenaline rushes and sometimes palpitations when tumbling around.

I used to be quite fit but life sucks now. The past 6 months I have been largely sedentary, and being deconditioned and chronically anxious probably doesn't help. I've been completely checked out by a cardiologist with echo and stress test in june. At the end of september I had a complete blood check up at the ER which came out fine.

It's like my body and more specifically my nervous system is completely out of whack. I'm shaken and startled easily. My heart feels weird and I'm convinced that there is something wrong they didn't find out. Some days I feel fine and I get up on my bike but I can't push myself because I get these weird adrenaline rushes sometimes followed by skipped beats.

Can someone relate?