Man, 30, Dismissed His ‘Jitters’ and Shortness of Breath as Anxiety. It Was Heart Failure

“It was a massive shock to me and my family,” Alex Balmes said

NEED TO KNOW

• Alex Balmes was 30 when he started experiencing symptoms like bloating, weight gain, jitters and fatigue
• After dismissing them as anxiety, he later learned he was in late-stage heart failure
• He’s now sharing his story to encourage others to stay on top of their health and seek medical attention for any unusual symptoms

A Florida man is sharing how symptoms he ignored and attributed to age were actually caused by heart failure.

In 2024, Alex Balmes — a dad and construction worker from Orlando, Fla. — started experiencing a number of unusual symptoms. He was 30 years old at the time and never liked going to the doctor. So, he brushed them off, believing they were simply due to aging and being a busy dad to his young daughter.

“I kinda thought that’s something that comes with old age,” he told the Orlando Health Heart and Vascular Institute. “I always just said, ‘That’s anxiety. I don’t need to go to a doctor.’ “

But his symptoms progressed. He started experiencing bloating, shortness of breath, weight gain and fatigue, and often felt jittery. When they started impacting his sleep, he decided to finally visit the emergency room.

There, Balmes quickly learned that he was in late-stage heart failure.

“It was a massive shock to me and my family,” he said. “I was known in my family as the strong person, the one they called when they needed to move to a new house… It blew us away.”

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According to the American Heart Association, symptoms of heart failure include shortness of breath, persistent coughing, fatigue, lack of appetite, confusion, increased heart rate, fluid buildup in body tissues and weight gain or loss.

Balmes, now 32, has since received a left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, a battery-powered tool that is surgically implanted in the chest to help pump blood through the body. It’s a temporary measure to save his life while he awaits a heart transplant.

“You don’t realize how sick you are until you get healthy,” he said. “Now, I’m back to playing regularly with my daughter. She forgets that I have batteries. I’ve just got to slow it down a little bit. I try to say, at least for me so young, I just got older faster.”

Now, in honor of February’s Heart Health Awareness Month, Balmes is sharing his story to raise awareness and help others stay on top of their health.

“If I had just got this checked out, I could’ve caught this a long time ago,” he said. “At the end of day, [it] could be nothing or it could be something, but that should be up to the professionals, and help is always there, so why not use it?”

Dr. Yahaira Ortiz, cardiologist at Orlando Health, is one of Balmes’ doctors, and admitted that many of her young patients miss the significance of their early symptoms.

A new survey with Orlando Health found that only one in 10 people said they would go to a cardiologist based on those symptoms and only half would see their doctor.

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“When it’s a young patient, it’s usually dismissed. It is not standard to think that somebody that young is going to be sick,” Ortiz told the hospital. “If you’re going to a provider that’s not recognizing persisting symptoms, you should seek further medical attention.”

“Ideally, you want the patient to seek medical attention before we get to the extreme. And I’ll probably say that I met Alex in that downfall. But we were blessed to be able to have an impact in his life and to have him here today telling us his story,” she added.