I am a 21-year-old male college student. Over the past couple of months I have started to experience a very hard pounding heartbeat. I can just be sitting and laying down trying to sleep and it feels like my heart is going to pound out of my chest. It isn t necessarily beating fast, just hard. And it sometimes feels that my heart is heavy . About six weeks ago it was really bad after a day of drinking a couple of energy/alcoholic drinks, so I went to the ER the next day. They did a EKG and said it was normal. Did blood work which was normal. They also did a chest x-ray and the doctor told me I did have a larger than normal heart, but nothing to worry about. I am scared and ready to go to a cardiologist. Any ideas?
Hello, Your symptoms could be related to anxiety. Nevertheless, I would recommend performing further tests in order to exclude any possible cardiac disorders: - a cardiac ultrasound to examine your heart function and structure- an ambulatory 24-48 hours ECG monitoring in order to exclude possible cardiac arrhythmia.  Other tests to consider would be complete blood count for anemia, thyroid hormone levels for thyroid gland dysfunction and blood electrolytes for possible imbalance.  Hope I have answered your query. Let me know if I can assist you further. Take care Chat Doctor. 