The past two days I have had moments where I feel my heart skip or flutter and I lose my breath for a moment, yesterday it happened 4 time throughout the day and today it happened 7 or 8 times, its very scary and frightening, i have never experienced anything like this. I am a smoker and drink a lot of soda.
Hello! Thank you for asking on Chat Doctor! I understand your concern and would explain that your symptoms seem to be related to cardiac arrhythmia. Anxiety and physical activity can also be the cause of some palpitations and ectopic heart beats. I would recommend consulting with your GP for a careful physical examination, a resting ECG, a chest x-ray study and some blood lab tests (complete blood count, fasting glucose, kidney and liver function tests, thyroid hormone levels, blood electrolytes). An ambulatory 24-48 hours ECG monitoring and a cardiac ultrasound are necessary to rule in/out a possible cardiac arrhythmia and examine better your cardiac function. If all the above tests result normal, the main cause of your symptomatology would be anxiety. Meanwhile, I recommend avoiding caffeine intake and have a good HY Chat Doctor.  Hope to have been of help! Feel free to ask any other questions whenever you need! Best regards,