Aa
How do you know if it is afib?
Hi, I am sure this question must have been asked at some point, but I couldn't find it in the archives. How do I know if I am having pvc's or if it is afib? Sometimes I have just skipped beats with no regular beat in between. This may last a minute and then return to normal. What does afib feel like? Thanks
Thanks for the response. I did wear a holter, but it was a good day and only picked up 2 "skips". Doctor said they were benign. I was just wondering the difference between a run of pvc and afib. I am assuming they can feel the same. Thanks again
you asked "What does afib feel like? "
It varies from person to person. It also depends on how regular the irregularity is. The first EP I saw - 7-8 years back - told me that people aren't wired to be able to feel heart irregularities. I walked out with a $20 of his when I proved that I was, indeed as I maintained, at that moment throwing pretty consistent PVCs. Schmuck didn't know it but I never gamble. I make wagers but it is always a sucker bet.
As I understand it, there are several degrees of atrial arrhythmia. One is an occasional PVC. You are getting more than one good atrial beat per ventricular beat. When it gets fairly consistent then you are in flutter. Unless I am mistaken, with A-fib your atria are not actually beating at all. They are just sort of quivering in a very uncoordinated way. When that happens, your AV node does not get a proper signal to synchronize with and it goes from bradycardia (very slow) to tachycardia (very fast). If completely unstimulated the AV node will pace itself but at around 30 beats/minute. You can live at that rate but you cannot long sustain consciousness.
Like any synchronized system the AV node has to have a sync pulse at approximately the right time or it cannot synchronize. When you are in atrial fibrillation (atrial tachycardia) the AV node is getting a lot of pulses from the atria but most of them come at a place in its cycle where it cannot respond to the pulse. Occasionally the random pulses from the atria will hit the AV node at close enough to the right time to trigger a ventricular beat. That is when you are likely to be tachy. In A-fib your heart rate is all over the map; now tachy; now brady; now somewhere in between. Mine used to do that. I had idiopathic (meaning no known causal agent) Paroxysmal Atrial Tachycardia. I not only had an irregular heartbeat, it was irregularly irregular meaning no pattern to it. I once was in an ER (after collapsing at work) watching the monitor when the traces on the monitor got REALLY crazy for a moment then BINGO! back to clean normal sinus.
Only a physician can diagnose A-fib. If you are having episodes of odd feelings in your chest, get yourself to a good cardiologist. A-fib isn't - in itself - likely to be lethal. But the turbulence it generates can cause clots to form. If you throw a clot from the right side of your heart it would very likely end up in one of your lungs. Google "pulmonary embolism". If you throw a clot from the left side - the output side - you have a chance of such nice happenings as deep vein thrombosis in you legs or arms. If the clot happens to travel up your carotid artery to your brain - and IIRC the carotid is the first tap on the aorta (think distribution manifold for the heart) - you are looking at an ischemic stroke. No telling what mischief an ischemic stroke will do. If you are luck it will hit your hindbrain and you will just stop. If you are not lucky it will lodge somewhere else and mess up your body control or intergere with cognitive function or paralyze you (hemi-plegia, paraplegia or quadraplegia). For me death would be preferable to being trapped in a body that no longer responds to my brain's commands.
You really need to get one of the episodes down on some sort of recording so a physician can read the trace and determine what is really happening. Get to an ER if you feel it happening or hopefully you will have an incident while wearing a halter moniter.
BTW, I am 56, have been having spells of PAT since at least '97 and just recently had my AV node disconnected from my atria (via an ablation procedure) and a pulse generator (pacemaker) installed. It has now been 6 days since my heart beat of its own accord. It isn't optimum but it beats the alternative.
Best wishes and good luck.
Bill
It varies from person to person. It also depends on how regular the irregularity is. The first EP I saw - 7-8 years back - told me that people aren't wired to be able to feel heart irregularities. I walked out with a $20 of his when I proved that I was, indeed as I maintained, at that moment throwing pretty consistent PVCs. Schmuck didn't know it but I never gamble. I make wagers but it is always a sucker bet.
As I understand it, there are several degrees of atrial arrhythmia. One is an occasional PVC. You are getting more than one good atrial beat per ventricular beat. When it gets fairly consistent then you are in flutter. Unless I am mistaken, with A-fib your atria are not actually beating at all. They are just sort of quivering in a very uncoordinated way. When that happens, your AV node does not get a proper signal to synchronize with and it goes from bradycardia (very slow) to tachycardia (very fast). If completely unstimulated the AV node will pace itself but at around 30 beats/minute. You can live at that rate but you cannot long sustain consciousness.
Like any synchronized system the AV node has to have a sync pulse at approximately the right time or it cannot synchronize. When you are in atrial fibrillation (atrial tachycardia) the AV node is getting a lot of pulses from the atria but most of them come at a place in its cycle where it cannot respond to the pulse. Occasionally the random pulses from the atria will hit the AV node at close enough to the right time to trigger a ventricular beat. That is when you are likely to be tachy. In A-fib your heart rate is all over the map; now tachy; now brady; now somewhere in between. Mine used to do that. I had idiopathic (meaning no known causal agent) Paroxysmal Atrial Tachycardia. I not only had an irregular heartbeat, it was irregularly irregular meaning no pattern to it. I once was in an ER (after collapsing at work) watching the monitor when the traces on the monitor got REALLY crazy for a moment then BINGO! back to clean normal sinus.
Only a physician can diagnose A-fib. If you are having episodes of odd feelings in your chest, get yourself to a good cardiologist. A-fib isn't - in itself - likely to be lethal. But the turbulence it generates can cause clots to form. If you throw a clot from the right side of your heart it would very likely end up in one of your lungs. Google "pulmonary embolism". If you throw a clot from the left side - the output side - you have a chance of such nice happenings as deep vein thrombosis in you legs or arms. If the clot happens to travel up your carotid artery to your brain - and IIRC the carotid is the first tap on the aorta (think distribution manifold for the heart) - you are looking at an ischemic stroke. No telling what mischief an ischemic stroke will do. If you are luck it will hit your hindbrain and you will just stop. If you are not lucky it will lodge somewhere else and mess up your body control or intergere with cognitive function or paralyze you (hemi-plegia, paraplegia or quadraplegia). For me death would be preferable to being trapped in a body that no longer responds to my brain's commands.
You really need to get one of the episodes down on some sort of recording so a physician can read the trace and determine what is really happening. Get to an ER if you feel it happening or hopefully you will have an incident while wearing a halter moniter.
BTW, I am 56, have been having spells of PAT since at least '97 and just recently had my AV node disconnected from my atria (via an ablation procedure) and a pulse generator (pacemaker) installed. It has now been 6 days since my heart beat of its own accord. It isn't optimum but it beats the alternative.
Best wishes and good luck.
Bill
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