Most people aren’t aware of the symptoms, especially if they’re otherwise healthy, because they don’t know that AFib can affect anyone!
Symptoms include:
- Fatigue
- Palpitations
- Shortness of breath
Can AFib impact anyone?
“Absolutely,” said Dr. Sam Sharma, Electrophysiologist with Vital Heart & Vein. “I see a number of patients in their early 20s and early 30s who are the picture of health. There are sports athletes, there are marathon runners that I know that have atrial fibrillation. We have treated Olympic athletes as well. So it’s not a disease that necessarily afflicts only patients who have heart conditions or underlying illnesses. It can really afflict patients who are otherwise normal in every other way.”
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What is AFib?
“It’s an irregular heart rhythm that occurs particularly after indulgence of excessive alcohol or poor diet and this can cause the heart to race,” said Dr. Sharma. “Unfortunately, if [patients] have that and [symptoms] don’t resolve, they can end up in the emergency room. Sometimes it goes away by itself and can reoccur in the future, but these are important signs and symptoms that you need to seek health care professional’s advice.”
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AFib patient, Michael Copley, could volley on the pickleball court for hours. So, when he started to get winded just going up a flight of stairs, he knew something was wrong. It turns out, it was his first sign of AFib.
“I took my pulse, and it was fast and so that was something new for me,” Copley said.
How do you first diagnose it?
Atrial fibrillation is a is a condition that is often misdiagnosed, or I would say delayed diagnosis, Dr. Sharma said, because patients often don’t feel symptoms, or they ignore the symptoms or if they go to see their cardiologist symptoms might not be present at the time the EKG is taken.
“Nowadays, we have monitors that we place on patients for up to 30 days, and there’s even monitors that we place under the skin that last up to three years that are constantly monitoring patients,” Dr. Sharma said. “These monitors can capture episodes of atrial fibrillation, give us the correct diagnosis. Even more importantly, we can provide therapies and then see how they respond to therapy by seeing how much effect they have afterwards.”
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Why is AFib so dangerous?
“It’s a major risk factor for stroke with patients who have atrial fibrillation. Blood clots can form inside the heart that can break off and go to the brain and cause a stroke. These strokes are very debilitating, and it’s thought that about 20% of strokes in the United States are caused by atrial fibrillation,” Dr. Sharma explained.
In addition to increasing your chance of stroke, AFib causes stress on the heart that gets progressively worse over time.
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Dr. Sharma said when patients start having more and more episodes of atrial fibrillation, it can actually weaken the heart muscle and contribute to congestive heart failure.
So, if you’re diagnosed, it’s essential to follow your doctor’s advice and get treated.
Ways to treat AFib
- Manage your blood pressure
- Manage your weight
- Watch sleep patterns
- Keep sleep apnea in control
- Reduce alcohol use, particularly binge drinking
“In the last 20 years, there have been a number of amazing, minimally invasive procedures that can be used to treat atrial fibrillation, reduce symptoms of atrial fibrillation, reduce the episodes of atrial fibrillation, and minimize the risk of stroke,” Dr. Sharma said.
Ablations are a popular way to treat AFib. A new procedure called the Farapulse is how Copley treated his AFib. It uses signals to zap the heart cells back into rhythm.
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A year after the procedure, he is back playing pickleball and AFib-free.
