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trial fibrillation—what we like to call AFib—is an increasingly common medical problem, an increasingly common heart rhythm disorder.
What it essentially involves is the top parts of the heart beating at about six to eight times the normal rate. And as a result of that, we face two problems.
Number one: people can have their heart rates increase, as a result of which they either feel the palpitations. Some people can feel shortness of breath. Some people can have chest pain. Other people can be completely asymptomatic.
Number two is the risk for blood clots. Because the heart is working so fast, the heart really doesn’t have time to clear out all the blood, and there’s a risk of a blood clot forming—and a risk of stroke, and risk of blood clots traveling and causing issues in other areas of the body.
Typically, the signs and symptoms of AFib most commonly are palpitations, shortness of breath, chest pain. Sometimes people don’t overtly experience the palpitations or don’t experience their heart racing. They kind of just feel out of it. They feel fatigued. They feel less energy. They feel very, very tired and very exhausted. And they can’t quite put a finger on why.
Most commonly, when the AFib is eventually detected, we realize that people have somehow chalked this up to just their aging process. They chalk it up to the fact that they’re getting older and never seek attention to it.
It’s usually diagnosed at multiple offices on an electrocardiogram, or an ECG.
We have a wide variety of treatment options for AFib, and it really depends on how symptomatic patients are with their atrial fibrillation—exactly what symptoms they’re experiencing, and how long they’ve had it for.
The treatment options can include a whole variety of medications that keep them in normal rhythm, takes away their blood thinners, or alternatively, procedures that are minimally invasive that we routinely perform called catheter ablations.
The other aspect of atrial fibrillation care that we need to worry about is the risk of blood clot formation and stroke. Typically, we start people on blood thinners to prevent the risk of stroke or to prevent blood clots traveling elsewhere in the body causing issues.
For people who are not able to tolerate blood thinners for a variety of reasons—either cost or because they’re at a higher risk of bleeding—we do offer treatments such as the left atrial appendage occlusion device, which takes people off blood thinners long-term while keeping them safe from stroke.
I think one of the common questions about atrial fibrillation that people ask is: when should I come see a heart rhythm specialist specifically? I think a good time is as soon as you’re diagnosed with atrial fibrillation.
Heart rhythm specialists can help guide you about atrial fibrillation—what to expect—and paint a very clear picture of how this disease process is going to progress over the next decades of life, and what we should try and work on as a team in order to better control the atrial fibrillation.
