Heart Palpitations

Heart palpitations are a feeling that your heart is thrashing too exhausting or too quick, skipping a beat, or fluttering. You may notice heart palpitations in your chest, throat, or neck.

Heart palpitations can be annoying or scary. They usually are not serious or harmful, though, and often get away on their own. Most of the time, they're connected to stress and anxiety or to consumption of stimulants like caffein, nicotine, or alcohol. Palpitations also usually occur throughout gestation.

In rare cases, palpitations can be a symptom of a additional serious cardiovascular disease. Therefore, if you have heart palpitations, make arrangements to see your doctor. And seek immediate medical attention if on with palpitations, you experience shortness of breath, dizziness, chest pain, or fainting.

After taking your medical history and conducting a physical communication, your doctor may order tests that will either make sure or rule out an underlying cause. If an underlying cause is found, the right treatment can cut back or eliminate palpitations. If your palpitations are not associated with an underlying cause, lifestyle changes, including stress management and the dodging of common triggers, can facilitate stop them.

Causes of Heart Palpitations

Many things will cause heart palpitations. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the cause is either related to your heart or is unknown. Non-heart-related causes of palpitations include:

1. Strong emotions such as anxiety, fear, or stress; palpitations often occur throughout panic attacks.
2. Vigorous physical activity
3. Caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, or illegal street medicine such as cocain and amphetamines
4. Medical conditions, including thyroid sickness, a low glucose level, anemia, low blood pressure, fever, and dehydration
5. Hormonal changes throughout period, pregnancy, or the perimenopausal period; sometimes, palpitations during maternity ar signs of anemia.
6. Medications, including diet pills, decongestants, asthma inhalers, ANd some drugs accustomed stop arrhythmias (a serious regular recurrence problem) or treat an hypoactive thyroid
7. Certain flavourer and nutritionary supplements
8. Abnormal electrolyte levels
9. Some people expertise palpitations when ingestion serious meals that ar made in carbohydrates, sugar, or fat. Sometimes, eating foods with high levels of monosodium salt (MSG), nitrates, or sodium will bring them on.

If you have heart palpitations after ingestion sure foods, the problem may well be food sensitivity. Keeping a food diary can facilitate you establish that foods to avoid.

Palpitations can additionally be associated with underlying cardiovascular disease. When they ar, palpitations are additional seemingly to represent cardiopathy. Heart conditions associated with palpitations include:

1. Prior heart attack
2. Coronary artery disease
3. Other heart issues such as symptom coronary failure, heart valve problems, or heart muscle problems.

Your doctor will conduct a physical examination, take your medical history, and ask concerning your current medications, diet, and lifestyle. The doctor also can raise once, how often, and under what circumstances palpitations occur.

Sometimes, a blood test will reveal the presence of anemia, electrolyte issues, or thyroid abnormalities and help establish the cause of palpitations. Other helpful tests include:

1. Electrocardiogram (ECG). An graphical record will be done either whereas you're at rest or whereas you're workout. The latter is called a stress graphical record. An graphical record records your heart's electrical signals and will discover abnormalities within the heart's rhythm.
2. Holter monitoring. A Holter monitor is worn on the chest. It continuously records your heart's electrical signals for twenty four to forty eight hours. It can discover rhythm abnormalities that weren't known throughout a regular graphical record take a look at.
3. Event recording. An event recorder is worn on the chest. You use a handheld device to record the heart's electrical signals once symptoms occur.
4. Chest X-ray.
5. Echocardiogram. This is an ultrasound examination of the center. It provides detailed info concerning the heart's structure and perform.
6. If necessary, your doctor may refer you to a specialist for extra tests or treatment.

Treatment of Heart Palpitations

Treatment of heart palpitations depends on their cause. In most cases, palpitations are found to be harmless and typically flee on their own. In those cases, no treatment is needed.

If palpitations are not as a result of an underlying condition, your doctor may advise you to avoid the things that trigger them. Strategies could include:

Reducing anxiety and stress. Common stress-reducing therapies include relaxation exercises, yoga, tai chi, biofeedback, guided mental imagery, and aromatherapy.

Avoiding certain foods, beverages, and substances. This may embody alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and illegal medicine.

Avoiding medications that act as stimulants. These include cough and cold medicines, and certain flavourer and nutritionary supplements.

If lifestyle changes fail to cut back or eliminate palpitations, your doctor may visit sure medications. In some cases, beta-blockers or calcium-channel blockers are used.

If your doctor finds that your palpitations are connected to an underlying condition, such as anemia, the focus are going to be on treating that condition. If the palpitations are caused by a medication, your doctor will attempt to notice another medication you'll be able to use. If the palpitations represent an cardiopathy, medications or procedures may be needed. You may even be spoken a regular recurrence specialist called an electrophysiologist.

Heart murmurs in adults

What are heart murmurs in adults?

We all read or heard talking about heart murmurs in adults, and many of us are curious to find out if  they have this dysfunction. A few know the true meaning of this condition, that’s why when our physician tells us we have  heart murmurs either we think we suffer from a devastating disease, either we ignore it, but none of this reaction is normal.  Next we will clarify the meaning and the cause for heart murmurs, in order to prepare people that might be diagnosed with this disorder to understand and deal their condition properly.
Heart murmurs in adults refer to the abnormal sounds heard by doctors when they listen to the heartbeats with a stethoscope. In medical practice, hearing  heart murmurs in adults raises the suspicion of heart valve pathology, but sometimes these abnormal heart sounds can occur in other conditions like a defect in the heart wall, anemia, fever etc. When there is no heart modification that can explain the murmurs, they are called functional. Because this condition can occur in other pathologies beside hear disorder, everytime we suspect a heart murmurs in adults we should check its presence with an echocardiography examination.
Heart murmurs affect both children and adults and are recognized as the “noise” heard between the two normal heart sounds. If the murmur occurs after the first heart sound is called systolic, which means it occurs during heart contraction, and if it occurs after the second heart sound is called diastolic and this means it occurs while heart is in its relaxation period. The classification into systolic and diastolic is important because it indicates whether we are facing a valve stenosis (narrowing of the heart valve) or insufficiency (the valves fail to close properly, letting blood to flow back into the heart chambers). There are other classifications for heart murmurs in adults, but those medical terms are more important for the specialists.

 Why do heart murmurs in adults occur and how we deal with them?

 As we explained above, in most of the cases heart murmurs in adults occur when there is a heart pathology:

• heart valve narrowing or closure impairment, in this case the blood flow becomes turbulent and makes a noise that we call it murmur,
• a defect in heart wall-a congenital defect that occurs in children, allowing blood to flow from one side of the heart to the other, determining blood with oxygen and blood with carbone dioxide to mix. Sometimes this condition can remain undiagnosed until late adulthood, because it is a small defect and doesn’t cause symptoms, but in many cases is diagnosed soon after birth, being recognized as a prolonged murmur (noise) heard during heart auscultation and needs surgical correction. Another type of heart murmur heard in children is the one determined by the ductus arteriosus persistence (a connection between aorta and pulmonary artery in the uterine life).
• other condition like anemia or fever can determine heart murmurs in adults, because they determine turbulent blood flow, but this murmur disappears once the condition is treated.

How do we  with deal heart murmurs in adults ? In patients suffering from valve pathology periodically monitoring is important because in time they can lead to heart failure, in order to prevent this, surgical replacement of the valves can be performed. Heart wall defect can also be repaired providing a normal life for these patients, while the causes for functional heart murmurs in adults once treated determine these abnormal heart sounds to disappear.

Heart murmurs in adults are a serious medical condition,  if you think you have it call your doctor.

Ejection fraction heart failure

What is ejection fraction heart failure?
Ejection fraction heart failure it is a term used to describe the amount of blood that heart can deliver to the main arteries. In medical practice, doctors measure the ejection fraction heart failure because this examination offers details about heart function and helps to determine if  there is a heart failure or not. Once the heart function is impaired, the ejection fraction begins to diminish and the systemic consequences of heart failure begin to occur. In early stages, the body will try to compensate the changes appeared due to heart function decrease, but in time these will become obviously.
What are the signs of ejection fraction heart failure?

When you are suffering from heart failure it is important to recognize the problem and look for a doctor as soon as possible, only in this way you can receive the correct treatment which will help the heart to function better and delay farther deterioration. At the beginning, people with diminished ejection fraction heart failure will feel more and more tired, but usually this symptom is wrongly associated with getting old, gaining weight, anemia or simply overlooked. Many people will find it is normal to feel tired during effort, without noticing that a few months ago they were able to perform the same effort without getting tired. Only when tiredness is getting worse and they have to deal it in common daily activities like walking, they begin to feel is something wrong and look for medical help, but in that moment their ejection fraction heart failure is already diminished. There are a lot of people living with diminished ejection fraction heart failure without knowing about this until they have routine medical examination or until symptoms get worse. In time, tiredness is accompanied by shortness of breath, blue coloring of lips, hands, feet, legs begin to swallow due to edema. It is important to report these symptoms to your doctor, because this will help him suspect your heart is not working normally. Diagnosing heart failure is not the last step before patients can start taking medication, it is also very important to find the cause for ejection fraction heart failure deterioration: is it a heart attack, a heart valves pathology, infections of heart walls, ischemia (heart cells don’t receive enough oxygen) ? etc.

Is there any treatment for diminished ejection fraction heart failure?

There are many drugs available that can help heart function better, but there is no cure for this, once the heart failure occurs, heart function and ejection fraction will deteriorate in time. What we can achieve by medication is to delay the progress of heart function impairment, ameliorate symptoms and increase the quality of life. One mistake made by many patients is to think that once they take the prescribed medication, their heart will continue to function normally from that point on, forgetting to fallow a correct diet, without salt and fats, continuing to drink alcohol, smoke, gain weight,  etc.

In patients diagnosed with heart failure, periodically heart function evaluation is very important and one examination that can offer information about the evolution of heart function is ejection fraction heart failure.

Inflammatory bowel disease symptoms

Inflammatory bowel disease symptoms are variable, affecting tissues outside digestive system and having an important mark on person’s self esteem; many times patients suffering from this disease are very depressive and unable to perform their activities. When we mention inflammatory bowel disease symptoms we have in mind Chron disease and ulcerative colitis.

Inflammatory bowel disease symptoms list

Inflammatory bowel disease symptoms are represented by digestive symptoms and non-digestive symptoms:

•  diarrhea is the most frequent and annoying symptom among the inflammatory bowel disease symptoms; some patients may have numerous watery stools,
• constipation: this is an often symptom in rectitis, (patients with ulcerative colitis complain of constipation, because this disease affects the rectum at the onset),
• abdominal pain- it is one of the frequent inflammatory bowel disease symptoms, it can be diffuse, or located in the iliac fossa (Chron disease affects, more frequently, the terminal ileum, which is the most distant part of the small intestine, located in the right iliac fossa, while ulcerative colitis affects rectum in most of the cases),
• stool with blood-it is a common finding among inflammatory bowel disease symptoms,
• weigh loss because of the diarrhea, which stops the intestine to absorb nutrients,
• fever, it is the response of the body to the inflammation of the intestine,
• abnormal communication among different parts of the intestine, or among intestine and urinary bladder or vagina (in medical practice this condition is called fistula),
• intestine stenosis (it is one of the inflammatory bowel disease symptoms known as Chron disease)-meaning a narrowing of the intestine lumen,
• blood cells abnormalities: anemia (low number of red blood cells and hemoglobin), a large number of platelets (a condition that predisposes to blood clots),
• deficits of vitamins and other nutrients, due to diarrhea, which favors malabsorption,
• intestine perforation,
• digestive cancer.

Non-digestive inflammatory bowel disease symptoms are represented by different medical conditions: liver disease (cholangiocarcinoma, primitive sclerosing cholangitis), arthritis, myositis (these patients need treatment with cortisone, which can determine, as an adverse effect, myositis), renal failure (due to dehydration), oral ulcerations, stomatitis etc.
How do we diagnose it? Once there is a clinical suspicion, a colonoscopy and intestine biopsy are needed in order to confirm the inflammatory bowel disease and also to distinguish between the two forms of inflammatory bowel disease (for each disease, there is a different histological pattern, the macroscopic aspect and the lesions location are criteria used to confirm which one of the inflammatory bowel disease is responsible for symptoms).
What is the treatment for this disease? Depending on whether there are complications, inflammatory bowel disease can be treated with cortisone (there are schemes of treatment starting with increasing doses of cortisone, which will be diminished gradually once the disease is under control), anti-inflammatory agents (like sulfasalazine), immunosuppressive medication (if the first two types of drugs are not effective) or surgery if there are complications like fistula, stenosis or intestine perforation or if disease can’t be controlled with medication.
What is the evolution of the inflammatory bowel disease? Inflammatory bowel disease symptoms have a fluctuanting evolution; there are periods with symptoms, followed by “free” periods. There are medical scales which can estimate the severity of the disease, using indices like red blood cell sedimentation rate, heart rate, body temperature, numbers of stools per day.

If any of the inflammatory bowel disease symptoms occur do not treat yourself and call a doctor.

Rapid heart beats after eating -worry or not

Rapid heart beats after eating - what should we be worried about?

Rapid heart beats

Some people experience rapid heart beats after eating and this can create an important discomfort as they begin to be afraid or avoid eating in order to prevent these irregular heart beats to occur. Others are worried they might have a heart disease that causes palpitations and sick medical help. In the next part of the article we will find out what is the meaning of these palpitation and how can we prevent them.
After a meal, the digestion process requires more blood in the stomach and intestine and that’s why the heart has to pump more blood in these organs. The process consisting in increasing the amount of blood in the abdominal area after a meal is very important as it helps the body to assimilate food. This routine activity can determine palpitations, because heart has to work harder then usually. Until now, heart palpitation after eating seems to be a normal manifestation that can occur during a daily physiological process of our body.
Along with palpitation, after eating there are other manifestations that can also occur:

• nausea
•  dizziness-it occurs because cerebral blood flow is reduced, as the stomach needs more blood then usually in order to digest the food.
•  fatigue or even exhaustion (the blood will accumulate in the digestive system, while other organs and among them, the brain, will receive a smaller amount of blood)
• chest pain after eating- many times, patient with coronary disease (chronic heart ischemia determined by deprivation of oxygen) can have a chest pains after eating
•  sweating
• insomnia-if you sleep immediately after a meal, you may have problems to fall asleep. Because during night digestion and digestive secretion used in this process are diminished, you may get indigestion with abdominal discomfort, nausea and vomiting.
•  shortness of breath-the stomach is full of food and presses against diaphragma, restricting lung expansion during breathing
•  abdominal discomfort-if we eat too much or meals which are difficult to digest

If we experience rapid heart beats after eating should we seek for medical help?

Even if sometimes, heart palpitation after eating it is a normal manifestation, there are other causes for this condition, which need to be evaluated and treated. The answer is yes, if we experience heart palpitation after eating we should pay a visit to our doctor and check if there is something wrong.
What is the cause for heart palpitations after eating?

•  sudden consumption of food after a long period of starvation. This is often seen in patients suffering from anorexia nervosa, when after a long time of not eating, they start the consumption of food, the level of blood sugar increases rapidly, followed by increased secretion of insulin, which can create arrhythmia and also decreases blood sugar. The rapid decrease of blood sugar will stimulate the secretion of adrenaline, which will stimulate heart activity and create palpitation (it is like when you hurry up a person and it is obviously that in some point she will do mistakes)
•  hiatal hernia– a small portion of the stomach protrudes into the chest through diaphragm (the muscle that separates chest from abdomen and looks like a roof). This condition is usually associated with gastroesophageal reflux disease and may lead to chest pain and palpitations.
•  obesity- usually these persons have a diet with lot of sugar and caffeine, with a sedentary lifestyle and they can experience palpitation and chest pain. Their body has a lot of fats and these fats will deposit on the blood vessels wall, blocking them and generating heart disease (coronary arteries disease-with deprivation of blood and oxygen in the heart tissues). Also, the heart has to work extra hard to pump blood into their stomach.
•  hormonal imbalance could be a possible cause of heart palpitation after eating. For example hyperthyroidism (a thyroid disorder with high level of hormones) determines heart palpitation, tachycardia, chest pain, shortness of breath etc.
•  Severe anemia can affect heart and determine tachycardia (rapid heart rate) or irregular heart beats. Because there is a small number of oxygen carriers, heart will try to pump the blood faster and faster in order to satisfy the tissues need for blood and oxygen. In the same time, heart needs oxygen for itself, working harder with less oxygen it is a very good condition for palpitation to occur. Persons that avoid eating meat, can have anemia, as the meat is the main source of iron.

How can we treat rapid heart beats after eating?

Preventing heart palpitation after eating should first start with a moderate diet and by this we mean to eat moderate amounts of food at regular intervals. It is not advisable to eat one meal after we starved ourselves an entire day. Regular meals in small proportion, regular exercise, losing weight and periodically check of the hormones level (since hormonal imbalance can determine heart dysfunction) are the solution to this medical issue.

What is exertional dyspnea?

Exertional dyspnea basics

When we hear talking about   exertional dyspnea or in other words “shortness of breath” one must think to the difficulty of breathing when is doing an exercise or easier said, lack of comfort in breathing. But isn’t it normal to experience some kind of dyspnea when we are exercising? Apparently not! In the next article I’m going to explain what is exertional dyspnea, when it appears, when we say this condition is pathological or not and what causes it.
The word “dypnea” is originally composed from two greek words: “dysp” which means hard, heavy, difficult and “pnoia” that means breathing. If we combine these two words we have “hard breathing”also said dyspnea. Dyspnea is a breathing disorder characterized by changing the pace and intensity of respiratory movements.
Exertional dyspnea is frequently overlooked because it can occur to healthy people and is frequent confused with fatigue. It isn’t always a pathological symptom. You can experience exertional dyspnea when you are exercising more than your body is used to, if you have a weight problem (you weigh to much or you are obese), if you are an active smoker, or if the air around you is polluted.
Exertional dyspnea becomes pathological and that means that we should worry and go see a doctor when even if we make the same exercise as we did before we feel like our lungs aren’t getting enough air.

 But how does exertional dyspnea appear ?

Dyspnea due to illness can occur when there is an imbalance between tissue oxygen demand, and the amount of oxygen that the body can provide. Many diseases can give exertional dyspnea , the most common being:

• anemia (lack of blood) - Shortness of breath is accompanied by pale skin

• disease with increased energy consumption (as in cancers with different locations, hyperthyroidism, and uncompensated diabetes
• lung disease (dyspnea by lack of oxygen) of various causes, dyspnea is accompanied by coughing and / or wheezing and  sputum
• heart disease – exertional dyspnea occurs first and then it can occur during  rest or lying down, the patient can also feel palpitations and chest pains
• serious liver disease (cirrhosis) - liver as “laboratory” of the body, shortness of breath occurs in cirrhosis by multiple mechanisms
• severe kidney disease - shortness of breath occurs with changes in fluid and electrolyte balance or anemia (erythropoietin synthesized by  kidney, substance that stimulates the bone marrow to manufacture red blood cells that are the cells that  transport oxygen around the body)
• hypertension – exertional dyspnea  occurs by forcing the heart and the  blood vessel
• obesity (fat in the chest and abdomen pressed, preventing the movement of breath, plus a larger amount of tissue needs a greater amount of oxygen).

As you can see there are many conditions that can  manifest as exertional dyspnea, some of them  really serious diseases and that’s why is very important to go see a doctor whenever you notice changes in your breathing rhythm or you experience respiratory problems.