The heart is the most active muscle in the body, beating more than 100,000 times per day. The chambers of the heart are constantly expanding and contracting, keeping all the vital systems alive and well. World Heart Day is part of a campaign to spread awareness about ways to keep this large and important muscle of our bodies working optimally. Heart disease and stroke are still the world’s leading causes of death – more than cancer, AIDS, Covid, or any other condition.
As strong believers in maintaining a healthy lifestyle that includes eating real food, cooking your own meals, avoiding junk food, and doing daily movement and exercise, we are passionate about encouraging people to do the same! Especially in recent years, we have seen levels of obesity, inactivity, adult-onset diabetes, and poor physical strength rising dramatically – especially in the younger population!
For us at Caring Medical Florida, we see a whole other side of heart disease risk factors. At our Hauser Neck Center, we hear patients say that they have a “mysterious heart condition” that no one can figure out. Suddenly, the patient experiences chest pain or heaviness, shortness of breath, and a pounding heart. Or suddenly, patients experience what seems to be anxiety, having never really felt anxious. Some say they had a root canal, then got heart palpitations. Nothing helps. Cardiologists are stumped.
This inability to figure out what is the main culprit is seen in the medical literature. A June 2020 paper in the Journal of Atrial Fibrillation describes the difficulty in understanding lesser-known diagnoses of racing heart and the problem of heart rate messaging miscommunication in the autonomic nervous system. Dysautonomia, the result of an autonomic nervous system malfunction, is often found in patients with cardiovascular symptoms. Arterial hypertension, the cardiovascular dysautonomia continuum encompasses other important although less known conditions such as POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) and reflex syncope (fainting from loss of blood pressure).
Also, heart diseases may evoke autonomic imbalances by themselves. Cardiac pump failure is usually associated with sympathetic hyperactivity such as rapid heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure, with neuroendocrine vasopressor activation. Sometimes the blood pressure sensors will notice the drop in blood pressure by sensing that the arterial walls are relaxed or too relaxed. Then receptors start sending urgent messages to the vagus nerve to decrease vagal tone thus slowing the heart rate. However, sometimes the vagus nerve does not get this message because something is blocking or interfering with the message. We find in a lot of these cases; people are suffering from cervical instability (loose connections in the ligaments that hold the cervical spine together), especially in the upper cervical area. The sensory nerves that tell the brain what is happening, moment to moment, regarding heart rate and blood pressure are carried by the vagus nerve and the glossopharyngeal nerve. If the messages that these sensory nerves need to deliver to the brain are blocked or impaired, the heart symptoms we described may develop.
When a person has cervical instability especially upper cervical instability it can impact the vagus nerve and the glossopharyngeal nerve. The vagus nerve and the glossopharyngeal nerve run in the carotid sheath, the connective tissue that encapsulates the vascular compartments of the neck. This runs right along the anterior body of the cervical vertebrae, especially C1-C2. When a person has cervical instability, those nerves can get compressed, and they can get stretched. Some of the nerve impulses can be blocked. When this happens a person can experience tachycardia that comes and goes. If you move your head in a certain direction suddenly you could get tachycardia or lightheartedness because your brain isn’t getting the right sensory input due to problems in the nerve conduction of the vagus nerve and the glossopharyngeal nerve.
How do people develop cervical instability? We are sure you know the number one cause! Facedown lifestyle, particularly related to cell phone use. We cannot stress this enough. We know that this seems weird that your cardiac condition may be related to your neck, but trust us, we see it repeatedly in our office.
So, in honor of World Heart Day, dump the junk, start eating fresh real food, move every day, and LOOK UP and put your cell phone down!