Symptoms and Treatment of Atrial Fibrillation/Flutter

30 June, 2009 No Comment

Are you a binge drinker? If you are, then stop it as soon as you can. Binge drinkers are prone to heart disorders and hypertension. Having a heart disorder is very aggravating. You can never tell when you will suffer an attack. One idiopathic disease is called atrial fibrillation.

Older people are at higher risk of suffering the disease. It is often associated with a variety of other heart ailments. Other conditions like hypertension and hyperthyroidism tend to co-occur with atrial fibrillation. The ailment also complicates pulmonary diseases like pneumonia.

Symptoms of Atrial Fibrillation
Exhaustion and a lack of sleep could possibly trigger an irregular and unstable heartbeat. Once the heart beats more quickly than normal, then it becomes less dynamic. This causes dizziness and shortness of breath. There’s a sudden awareness of the heart’s abnormal palpitations. When doing arduous activities, chest pain becomes unbearable. Angina is evident, even while lying down.

So what must you do once these symptoms have been detected?
It is highly recommended that the patient seek a doctor’s aide. Whether sure or not, it is better to do something about the disorder than to do nothing at all. Diagnosis includes electrocardiogram testing which traces the heart’s beat rate and identifies a pattern of fibrillatory waves, showing abnormal patterns.

Echocardiogram tests also help the doctor look for basal cause of atrial fibrillation, in other words whether it was due to earlier heart ailments or hyperthyroidism. But once angina is evident, immediate treatment must be started, even without all these diagnostic tests. Once chest pains complicate, there is a high probability of stroke.

Before reaching this situation, immediate medical treatment must be given. Taking drugs to control the heart’s beat rate (e.g., beta-blocker drugs) is one of the most effective rate control treatments. The medication sends electrical impulses to the heart and these impulses stabilize the heart rate.

One technique called cardioversion or the relapsing of heart beats to regular rhythms is also recommended. This can be accomplished through electric shock inducement of the heart. The use of warfarin slows coagulation of emboli and other blocking materials in the blood vessels. It also reduces the probability of stroke. Other treatments can also be considered depending on basal ailments aside from atrial fibrillation.