Hello -
If you're having palpitations with this, that would make a lot of sense. Some people do note a lot of palpitations (and accompanying chest discomfort) after drinking, and sometimes it's actually a sustained
arrhythmia called
atrial fibrillation. Most times, though, it's just isolated premature heartbeats. This is the likely explanation, but of course it's impossible to know this for sure without being your being examined to have other things ruled out.
Still, while heavy drinking can, over time, damage the heart muscle, you're too young to have done this sort of damage as yet. You most likely are having some heartbeat irregularities, which are common anyway, and can be much increased by intake of alcohol.
That being said, you should at least have a routine electrocardiogram (
EKG) done, just to be certain you don't have some obscure genetic problem and aren''t causing yourself a more serious problem (
atrial fibrillation, while not in and of itself harmful, if sustained for long periods can lead to formation of clots resulting in
stroke). It would be reasonable for your doctor to at least do an
EKG when you present with chest discomfort and palpitations. These are also very often associated with stress and
anxiety, so it's not an unreasonable question; but all the most serious things should be ruled out up front. It sounds like you tolerate heavy exercise quite well, so it's probably just something caused by the drinking. It would still be nice to know exactly what, if anything, is happening. If there's nothing then you might want to take the next step and look at stress,
anxiety and other emotional issues. First things first, though.
Hope this is helpful. Best of luck to you.
