It’s Valentine’s season and there’s a lot of talk about love these days, and when people fall in love, they often describe how their heat goes pitter-patter. However, if you experience a fluttering in your heart, it may be something serious regarding your health.
February is also American Heart Month, a time to focus on heart health, so we turned to Dr. Delair Gardi with Heart and Vascular Consultants, to learn what signs you should look out for when it comes to heart health.
So what actually causes your heart to flutter? Typically, if you have this sensation, it means the upper chambers in your heart are not pumping as they should, and are instead “shivering,” says Dr. Gardi. You will feel some discomfort when this happens.
If you do feel a fluttering, it could mean several things. The one you should be most concerned about is if it indicates you have atrial fibrillation. This is when you have an irregular heart rhythm where the upper chambers are not in sync with the lower chambers. In this case, the upper chambers beat faster and more sporadically, up to 300 beats per minute, and the lower chambers will not match this. This makes the heart lose some of its functional capacity, says Dr. Gardi.
Atrial Fibrillation can cause the blood to clot, as it is not moving as it should, leading to more dangerous things like a stroke, heart failure, or cardiac arrest.
To treat this, blood thinners will often be recommended to prevent clotting, and they will try to slow down your heart rate so your heart does not get tired of beating so fast. There are also a couple of more complex procedures that can be done if this is a recurring problem.
However, a flutter could also indicate tachycardia (a fast heart rate), or Arrhythmia (an irregular heartbeat) which are less dangerous, but still something to get checked out.
For the full interview, watch the video above.
To find out more about all that heart and vascular consultants can do to help you have a healthy heart, click or tap here to visit their website.