Understanding Heart Flutters: Causes, Symptoms & Treatments

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WHAT HEART FLUTTERS CAN MEAN

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WHAT HEART FLUTTERS CAN MEAN

You’ve probably experienced that fluttering sensation in your chest at some point, but do you know what it could mean for your heart health? Heart flutters, also known as palpitations, can range from a minor annoyance to a sign of a serious cardiac condition. If you’re experiencing frequent or concerning heart flutters, it’s time to consider visiting our Atlanta heart doctors for a thorough evaluation.

Heart flutters are like unexpected drum solos in your chest’s rhythm section. They can feel like your heart is skipping beats, racing, or doing flip-flops. While often harmless, these sensations can sometimes indicate underlying heart issues that need attention.

You might wonder what causes these flutters and when you should be concerned. Various factors can trigger heart flutters:

Stress or anxiety: Your body’s fight-or-flight response can cause your heart to race.
Caffeine or alcohol: These substances can stimulate your heart.
Dehydration: Low fluid levels can affect your heart’s rhythm.
Hormonal changes: Pregnancy or menopause can cause occasional palpitations.
Medications: Some drugs, including decongestants, can cause heart flutters.
Electrolyte imbalances: Low potassium or magnesium can affect heart rhythm.
Thyroid issues: An overactive thyroid can speed up your heart rate.
Arrhythmias: Irregular heart rhythms like atrial fibrillation can cause fluttering sensations.
Heart valve problems: Issues with your heart valves can lead to palpitations.
Heart disease: Heart flutters can sometimes indicate underlying heart disease.

An occasional flutter is usually benign. If you experience frequent or severe palpitations, please seek medical attention. This is warranted if you have trouble breathing, chest pain, or feel dizzy.

By visiting our Atlanta heart doctors, you’re taking an important step towards understanding and managing your heart flutters. Our cardiologists are experts in diagnosing the underlying causes of palpitations and determining whether they represent a serious condition.

During your visit, you’ll receive personalized care tailored to your situation. Our doctors will perform a thorough examination, which may include tests like an ECG, Holter monitor, or echocardiogram to assess your heart’s structure and rhythm. They’ll work with you to identify any triggers for your palpitations and develop a management plan.

Don’t let unexplained heart flutters cause unnecessary worry or go unchecked. Schedule an appointment with our Atlanta heart doctors today for a comprehensive evaluation. While many heart flutters are harmless, it’s important to rule out serious underlying conditions.

Understanding the cause of your heart flutters is key to proper management and peace of mind. Our team is here to provide expert care, whether your palpitations need simple lifestyle adjustments or more advanced treatment. By addressing your heart flutters now, you’re taking an important step in maintaining your overall heart health for years.

Read on for more information on heart flutters and how CVG provides comprehensive cardiac care.

What are Heart Flutters?

Heart flutters are specific types of heart palpitations, also referred to as atrial flutter, a heart rhythm disorder resulting from an abnormal circuit inside the upper chamber of your heart, known as the right atrium. This causes an irregular heartbeat; a normal heart rate is about 60 to 100 beats per minute, while an abnormal heart rhythm caused by atrial flutter is about 250 to 400 beats per minute.

Types of Atrial Flutter

Two types of heart flutters differentiate between chronic and acute. Paroxysmal atrial flutter means the condition comes and goes, with an episode typically lasting between hours and days. On the other hand, persistent atrial flutter is a chronic heart condition that is more or less permanent.

Atrial flutter can commonly be confused with atrial fibrillation (AFib), although these are two distinct conditions. However, they are closely related as they are both types of arrhythmias. About one-third of people with AFib also experience heart flutters.

During atrial flutter, the electrical impulses in the heart do not travel in a straight line from top to bottom. Instead, they move in a circle inside the upper chambers. This means that even though the heart is beating too fast, it still has a steady rhythm.

In atrial fibrillation, the electrical signals travel in a fast and disorderly pattern, which causes the atria to quiver instead of squeezing strongly. This causes the heart to beat too quickly, just as atrial flutter, yet the difference is that this heartbeat does not follow a steady rhythm.

Risk Factors for Atrial Flutter

You have an increased risk of experiencing heart flutters if you have been diagnosed with heart problems such as heart failure, high blood pressure, or heart valve problems. Other conditions that can heighten your risk include COPD, diabetes, thyroid disease, alcoholism, or other serious illnesses. Your risk can also increase if you have previously suffered from a heart attack.

Causes of Atrial Flutter

In some cases, there is no identifiable cause for heart flutters, but typically, they are due to heart disease or diseases elsewhere in the body that can affect the heart. Some of the heart diseases that may lead to atrial flutter include hypertension, ischemia, cardiomyopathy, abnormal heart valves, and hypertrophy. It may also be caused by recovery from open heart surgery.

Diseases elsewhere in the body that may affect your heart can include hyperthyroidism, pulmonary embolism, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Besides these diseases, heart flutters can also be linked to substance use, such as alcohol consumption or the use of stimulants such as cocaine, amphetamines, diet pills, cold medicine, and even caffeine.

Diagnosing Atrial Flutter

If you have atrial flutter, make an appointment with your doctor. The first thing your doctor will do is discuss your symptoms with you to determine if other diseases may be causing the flutters. If your doctor suspects another condition, various tests can be conducted. These tests will also help discover what type of arrhythmia you are experiencing.

Your doctor may order an electrocardiogram (EKG), echocardiogram, or blood tests. If your symptoms are not persistent, your doctor may ask you to wear a Holter monitor or event recorder for a few days. These record your heart and will track your symptoms whenever the arrhythmias occur. Once the type of arrhythmia and the condition causing the atrial flutter have been discovered, your doctor will decide your treatment plan based on these factors.

Treatment for Atrial Flutter

You may be prescribed heart rate medications to slow your rapid heartbeat and help the heart muscle pump blood more effectively. These medications can include digoxin, beta-blockers, and calcium channel blockers. Heart rhythm medications may also be used for treatment, such as sodium channel blockers to slow your heart’s ability to conduct electricity, potassium channel blockers to slow the electrical signals, or anticoagulants to prevent blood clots.

Your doctor can also perform procedures other than medications, such as electrical cardioversion or a specific form of catheter ablation known as radio frequency ablation.

Symptoms of Atrial Flutter

Since heart flutters are a subgroup of heart palpitations, many of the symptoms you may experience are similar, although some people do not experience any symptoms at all. People with atrial flutter may describe feeling a fluttering or pounding sensation in the chest, anxiety, shortness of breath, trouble exercising, confusion, or fatigue. If other heart or lung diseases cause the atrial flutter, the symptoms linked to the condition may be more severe. These symptoms include chest or heart pain, lightheadedness, and fainting.

Why Choose CVG?

At CVG, our cardiologists offer extensive experience caring for patients using state-of-the-art techniques. Their compassion adds so much to your care because our doctors understand how heart issues can affect you physically and take an emotional toll. Trust is the #1 factor in the doctor/patient relationship. You can trust your CVG cardiologist with every aspect of heart care.

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Board-certified Doctors

CVG’s twenty board-certified heart doctors will guide you through your healthcare journey with the utmost compassion and individual attention. We aim to provide you with state-of-the-art cardiac care that includes the full spectrum of services, from testing to diagnosis and treatment. The doctor/patient relationship is built on trust. Through our combined efforts, we can conquer any challenge that comes our way.

Invasive therapies may also treat an abnormal heart rhythm, such as electrical cardioversion, which sends electrical impulses through your chest wall and allows normal heart rhythm to restart, or catheter ablation that disconnects the abnormal rhythm’s pathway. Suppose your doctor determines that electrical devices are the best course of action. In that case, you may be given a permanent pacemaker, an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), or biventricular (B-V) pacemakers and defibrillators.

How CVG Can Help

CVG offers multiple services that can discover an enlarged heart or conditions that will lead to it. At CVG, we perform stress tests that will observe blood flow and test for various forms of heart disease. There are three types of stress tests that we perform:

A treadmill test is a test in which you will walk on a treadmill that gets faster and steeper every 3 minutes. This will stress your heart so that our nurse or doctor can determine your heart rate and blood pressure.
An echo test is performed before and after your treadmill test to determine how well your heart pumps blood.
A nuclear stress test is a treadmill test that is prefaced by an injection of medicine that shows the flow of blood to your heart.

We also offer cardiac catheterization to diagnose and treat several heart issues. If any of these tests determine a problem, we offer treatment solutions such as atrial fibrillation testing and catheter ablation. Learn more about our services here, or schedule an appointment to talk to our doctors.

Schedule Your Appointment with a CVG Atlanta Area Cardiologist

Expertise, experience, and compassion are the pillars of CVG’s patient-centered cardiac care. Please schedule your appointment with CVG today. Call (770) 962-0399 or 678-582-8586. You may also request an appointment online. If you have an emergency, don’t contact us online; please call 911.