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Showing posts from April, 2020

2020 Atrial Fibrillation Guidelines

For those of you not aware, we have major cardiology groups and other physiology groups like the American College of Cardiology and the Heart Rhythm Society , which every few years, release joint statements about how to manage atrial fibrillation. They usually incorporate things that have had major changes that can influence and management of patients with atrial fibrillation. And so in 2019, they released a focused update. It’s not a complete overhaul of the guidelines, but it did emphasize some new treatment options or new treatment options and new treatment guidelines for doctors and patients out there, which I wanted to emphasize to you today. So the first thing in the guideline was that changes into blood thinners that the newer category of blood thinners, sometimes called NOACs or DOACs, which includes new blood thinners, like Eliquis or Xarelto or Pradaxa or Savaysa, are now preferred over warfarin, meaning these are the preferred medications to take for blood thinners over...

What is Heart Palpitations? Palpitations or Heart Attack

What is Heart Palpitations? when patients are describing either a racing heart, that their heart will just, they feel like they just ran a mile even though they’re just sitting at rest. When people, when patients describe skipped beats, like they feel like their heart is skipping a beat and it bothers them, it interferes with their quality of life. Depending on the type of arrhythmias they can interfere with the quality of the patient’s life, for one, and if it’s something like atrial fibrillation it could lead to things like stroke, heart failure, increased risks for death related to cardiovascular causes. A lot of patients already know, in terms of lifestyle changes, what’s bringing on the palpitation. Say they have three cups of coffee or energy drinks in the morning and then they get palpitations. I think that’s, you know, caffeine is a stimulant and it stimulates the adrenaline system for the heart and a lot of arrhythmias arise from an excess of that adrenaline and cut...