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Atrial Fibrillation (AFib) | Q&A

Atrial fibrillation is the most common heart rhythm abnormality, and it results in the upper chamber of your heart beating extremely fast, 500, 600 beats a minute. This causes an irregular rapid heartbeat. It's very much of an age related problem. It's rare before 50, by the time you're 80, one in 10 people have Afib. It's also more common if you have other types of heart disease, if you're very obese, sometimes it runs in families. So it's a very common important problem affecting about over five million adults in the United States. Diagnosis of atrial fibrillation is by obtaining an EKG, which will document atrial fibrillation. And so this is something that your internal medicine doctor may do, maybe picked up incidentally when you're getting a routine checkup, or you may have symptoms. Your heart may be racing. You may feel fatigued, know that something's not right, an EKG is obtained, and you're told you have atrial fibrillation. The first thin...

How to tell if the palpitations you are getting are serious or not

  Originally posted at:   https://anaayafoods.com/how-to-tell-if-the-palpitations-you-are-getting-are-serious-or-not/ Palpitations are a really common symptom that I see in my clinic and the majority of palpitations are not serious, the big worry, when people experienced palpitation, is whether they may have a heart rhythm disturbance even if they have a heart rhythm disturbance most heart rhythm disturbances are not serious. So that’s a little bit of reassurance the first thing I’d like to talk about is what is a palpitation I suppose the palpitation is an awareness of one’s heartbeat to the extent that it feels abnormal. So the heart could be beating normally but is sensed abnormally now there are many normal causes of palpitations so for example if you were walking down a dark alley in someone jumps out that would cause palpitation that would cause the heart to beat very fast and that would be spelt as a palpitation the bet doesn’t signify a problem with the heart itself. T...

Two types of atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD) that can occur

  There are two general types of atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD) that can occur, depending on which structures are not formed correctly: Complete AVSD A complete AVSD occurs when there is a large hole in the center of the heart which allows blood to flow between all four chambers of the heart. This hole occurs where the septa (walls) separating the two top chambers (atria) and two bottom chambers (ventricles) normally meet. There is also one common atrioventricular valve in the center of the heart instead of two separate valves – the tricuspid valve on the right side of the heart and the mitral valve on the left side of the heart. This common valve often has leaflets (flaps) that may not be formed correctly or do not close tightly. A complete AVSD arises during pregnancy when the common valve fails to separate into the two distinct valves (tricuspid and mitral valves) and when the septa (walls) that split the upper and lower chambers of the heart do not grow all the way to me...

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ATRIAL FLUTTER AND ATRIAL FIBRILLATION?

Atrial flutter and atrial fibrillation are both heart rhythm abnormalities, and both these rhythm abnormalities can cause symptoms of palpitations, shortness of breath and lightheadedness. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ATRIAL FLUTTER AND ATRIAL FIBRILLATION Atrial flutter is a regular rhythm that is due to a fixed distance “short circuit” within the right atrial chamber giving an atrial rate of 300 beats per minute (bpm). This typically gives a heart rate which is directly divisible by 300: for example 150bpm, 100bpm, 75bpm, 60bpm, 50bpm. This heart rate profile in such cases normally looks like a straight line – ie with a single heart rate, often at 150bpm throughout the daytime, and perhaps a little slower at 100bpm or 75pm at night, appearing in “steps”. In atrial fibrillation, the abnormal circuits are seen within the left atrium. There are multiple circuits with varying cycles within the left atrium, which leads to a characteristic irregularly irregular heart rhythm profile, where heart rate...

CAN DOCTORS IN ACCIDENT AND EMERGENCY OR URGENT CARE TREAT HEART PALPITATIONS?

Emergency doctors can help make you arrive at a clear diagnosis with a simple ECG. Please do take a copy or if not, capture a photograph of that all-important ECG on your phone. It may be the only documentation of the palpitation you may get! This is crucially important for your cardiologist (specifically electrophysiologist – a cardiologist with a specialized interest in palpitations) to be able to make appropriate onward treatment recommendations at a later stage. If you are in persistent tachycardia, the emergency doctor can give you specific treatment for your condition. For example, if you have supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), you can be given a drug called adenosine which is highly successful at terminating or stopping the SVT. You can usually be started on a drug immediately such as a beta-blocker (something that ends in a – olol, e.g. bisoprolol, metoprolol, or calcium blockers such as verapamil or diltiazem) to help minimize further recurrences, and should be asked to be se...

What Are Atrial Fibrillation Triggers?

  In this article I'm going to be talking about things can that can actually exacerbate or trigger an episode of chav fibrillation now some of these triggers don't apply to everybody some of this involves you need to be a detective with your own nature fibrillation to know what more commonly triggers off Eurasia fibrillation so you know better what to avoid so what are some common triggers for each of fibrillation number one. I would say is fatigue and sleep deprivation when you're not sleeping well there's a lot of stress hormones to get released your body feels kind of revved up sometimes you're drinking more caffeine because you're sleep-deprived and all of this can lead to episodes of HR fibrillation so good sleeping habits are essential to trying to minimize episodes of atrial fibrillation. Number two would be getting sick for any type of reason whether that be a viral illness can certainly trigger episodes of atrial fibrillation however act more commonly s...

How can I tell if I have Atrial Fibrillation or an Arrhythmia?

Patients come to me all the time and they have palpitations. They feel their heart beating. Most of these people actually it’s their own rate going fast at times. And it’s what I call the princess and the pea syndrome. Some people feel everything and you can put as many mattresses as you want on top of that pea and they still feel it. And that’s very unfortunate. Whereas other people can be in almost life-threatening rhythms and they don’t feel anything. So the sensation of an arrhythmia is very difficult to pinpoint even for a doctor. You need proof. So if you’re having a feeling of palpitations, it’s a very simple way to figure it out. We just give you a monitor to wear for a given period of time and we correlate your symptoms with the electrocardiographic representation. We can even use phone apps now to do it, and if your symptoms turn out to be atrial fibrillation then we have to go down that path. This is not to be disparaging to any doctor who listens for 15 seconds on a patient...