Best Cardiologist in London

Today we're gonna be talking about sleep apnea and how sleep apnea can affect a person's atrial fibrillation. So first of all what is sleep apnea? Sleep apnea is a sleep related disease where people basically stop breathing while they're sleeping. And during those periods which can last anywhere from just a few seconds to 15, 30 seconds, patient's oxygen levels also go down there in that period when they stop breathing. And people who have sleep apnea, they can actually stop breathing many times throughout the night. 15, 20, 50 times. It can happen many times where a patient stopped breathing overnight. Sleep apnea is usually diagnosed with a sleep study. Usually we'll go to a facility, have your sleeping monitor with a monitor to your sleeping... Your breathing pattern and also your oxygen levels to see if you have sleep apnea. So what is the association between sleep apnea and AFib? So there have been studies that have looked at this association and it's

We're going to be talking about AFib and heart attacks and discussing the question, can AFib actually give you a heart attack? Many patients when they have episodes of atrial fibrillation, they can have chest pain and feel as if they are having a heart attack. So can atrial fibrillation actually give you a heart attack? The answer to that question is both yes and no. And let me explain why I answer it that way. Atrial fibrillation by itself is unlikely to cause a heart attack in somebody who has an otherwise normal heart. Meaning that you've never had a heart attack before, you don't have any blockages, you've never had bypass surgery, and your heart is otherwise normal. It would be very  unlikely to see AFib cause a heart attack  even if your heart rate was going pretty fast...120, 150 beats per minutes, maybe even faster, close to 180 beats per minute. Again, if your heart is otherwise normal, a normal strength and no blockages, it would be unlikely for it to cause