The 4 types of heart palpitations

video is entitled the four different types of heart palpitations all heart palpitations can be divided into one of four different categories and if you know this then it makes it much easier for you and for your doctor to work out what your help heart palpitations are due to okay let me just talk you through this heart palpitations can be an extremely worrying and distressing symptom especially if they start occurring in someone who has never experienced them before not only can they be extremely uncomfortable um but they can also generate a huge amount of fear for the patient because the poor patient doesn't know what they mean often when someone gets heart palpitations and after they've settled people go on Google and they'll type in heart palpitations and Google will churn out a huge list of really horrible sounding um different Rhythm disturbances uh which uh add to a patient's fear so you'll see things like non-sustained VT VT SVT AF atal flutter atal tachicardia ectopics all this kind of stuff um and then that causes even more anxiety Then the patient goes to the doctor and the doctor says well let's do a monitor because you'll only work out what your heart palpitations are due to if you have a monitor which documents them the patient then Waits several days weeks to have this Monitor and sometimes and often when the patient gets the monitor they don't get the heart palpitations and then they return the Monitor and then they start getting their palpitations and this generates a huge amount of anxiety because no one has actually managed to pick up what they're getting and um at some point even the poor patient gets confused as to whether are there really heart palpitations is it my anxiety what's going on so is there an easy way for a person uh to try and work out why they what their heart palpitations are due to um even without a monitor and so I thought I'd do a little video uh to try and make it easier uh because if you can Define your heart palpitations just by feeling them uh then it makes it much easier for you uh to describe them to your doctor and sometimes the doctor will be able to reassure you without even having to resort to a monitor so let me tell you this um and I hope this will make U things easier what is a heart palpitation a heart palpitation is a symptom it's something you complain of it's a bit like saying it's it's it's a symptom like pain you know you go to your doctor saying uh I'm getting pain the doctor won't say you're getting pain so heart palpitation is a symptom which is subjective to you all right and no one can say to you oh no what you're getting is not a heart palpitation if it is something that you experience where you become aware of your heartbeat to the extent that it feels abnormal to you then that is a heart palpitation that could be just being aware of your heart beating harder it may be aware of your heart skipping beats it may be um uh an awareness of your heart beating irregularly it may be an awareness of your heart beating fast if it feels abnormal to you then that is a heart palpitation in a very simplistic sense now when you um uh the the first thing if you are ever experiencing hot palpitations is that you should try and feel your pulse when you're experiencing them all right now I'll show you how to feel the pulse uh the best way is most of us have a little Adams Apple here okay and if you just go to the side of that and push in not too hard and just hold there you will feel a pulse okay now the pulse has two characteristics it has a rate and it has a rhythm okay now the rate can be normal or abnormal and the Rhythm can be regular or irregular so all palpitations can only fall into one of four categories normal rate regular rhythm abnormal rate regular rhythm normal rate irregular Rhythm abnormal rate regular rhythm okay so all palpitations will fall into one of these four categories let's go through each of them so that you understand okay what is a normal rate a normal rate is a rate between 60 and 100 beats per minute but actually um truthfully a rate between 40 to 120 is acceptable and can be classified as normal all right so let's say you're getting palpitation s you feel your pulse the first thing you want to work out is what the rate is okay if your heart rate is between 40 and 120 beats per minute or less than 40 to yeah 40 to 120 beats per minute then you call that a normal rate and then you feel the rhythm okay and if it feels regular then that falls into a normal rate normal Rhythm palpitation what causes normal rate normal Rhythm palpitations um normal rate normal Rhythm palpitations are generally not a heart rhythm disturbance it's something else that's causing you to feel those um feel your heart beat as palpitation so for example if you get stressed all of a sudden that will feel abnormal but actually when you feel it it will be normal rate normal Rhythm if you're watching a scary movie and uh you suddenly get get scared you will feel your heart pounding it'll pound really hard but if the rate is normal and the rhythm is normal then that is most likely just because of fear or anxiety or stress fever things like that sometimes thyroid problems can do that something you know but but it does not reflect a heart rhythm disturbance all right what about if you have normal rate irregular rate okay there are only two possibilities normal rate irregular Rhythm two possibilities one ectopic heartbeats two atrial fibrillation and there's a difference atrial fibrillation will feel like this completely completely irregular completely irregular Rhythm okay irregularly irregular no pattern to it the rate may not be very fast it may be 120 it may be 110 it may even be 70 but there's no no pattern it's it's irregular of course sometimes you can get this kind of irregularity which is again another type of normal rate irregular Rhythm which is due to ectopic heartbeats okay and this can be a combination of different types it could be like this or it could be the difference is that in ectopics it doesn't really matter whether it's one mbeat followed by a thud or a little flutter or two or three flutters or a thud followed by a Mist beat uh the there are normal regular beats interspersed so you will get some regular beats and then you will get something funny go on and then you'll get normal beats all right and you'll get something funny go on and you'll get normal beats with atrial fibrillation there are no normal beats so you'll just get okay so that's the difference but there are only two types of heart rhythm disturbance which will give you a normal heart rate but an irregular Rhythm and if it is sustained and completely regular it's likely to be atrial fibrillation if there are some normal beats and then you get some kind of irregularity then that's a lot more likely to be ectopic heartbeats um okay so so that is the second category then we come to abnormal rate normal Rhythm all right now that means that the heart is going fast but the rhythm is normal so here we go uh the heart rate is going fast but the rhythm is regular the rhythm is regular okay so what could those be that could be something called sinus tachicardia which is just a fast heart rate again brought about by adrenaline so for example you're walking along in the middle of the night and suddenly uh someone jumps out at you your heart will go fast but it will be completely regular okay but there are other heart rhythm disturbances which can also cause this kind of pattern which are things like an SVT a supr ventricular teic cardio or even ventricular teic cardio will present like this SVT VT um atrial teic cardia all of them will be regular rhythm fast heart rate over 120 beats per minute okay so how do you distinguish between sinus tachicardia which is you know fear anxiety adrenaline Etc or a heart rhythm disturbance like an SVT or or VT or anything like that well if it's sinus tachic cardia what you will usually find is you have to go to how it starts and how it finishes if it comes on like a light switch all right so it's like your heart rate is going like this and if it suddenly goes boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom and then out okay that's more likely to be a heart rhythm disturbance like a supr ventricular tachicardia or ventricular tachicardia now I'm mentioning ventricular tachicardia for the sake of completeness but it's very unusual in um to have ventricular tchic cardia uh particularly if you don't have any underlying heart disease whereas super ventricular tachic cardias do tend to occur in younger people but when they come on they are literally like a light switch so your heart is going bang and then when you come out of it bang sinus tachic cardia which is because of fear anxiety stress that kind of thing will generally come on more gradually so it'll start off and then it will go off die away and that's why it's really important when you have this um normal um sorry regular rhythm um fast heart rate to pay attention to how it starts and how it finish es if it starts suddenly and finishes suddenly it's more likely to be a heart rhythm disturbance if it starts gradually or finishes gradually then it's much more likely just to be sinus techic cardia which is not a heart rhythm disturbance your heart is doing something completely normal but something else is telling it to go faster all right thyroid dysfunction would also cause this kind of pattern fever would cause this pattern being scared would cause this pattern but an SVT atrial tachicardia atrial flter ventricular teic cardia will also cause this pattern and then finally there is um irregular Rhythm abnormal heart rate okay that's the final uh category that is atrial fibrillation so if the heart is going fast and the rhythm is abnormal then that is highly highly likely to be atrial fibrillation and nothing else okay so if you pay attention to U the nature of your heart rhythm disturbance and if you can divide them into one of these four categories it'll put your mind at considerable ease none of them are hugely dangerous all right particularly if you don't have any heart rhythm H sorry if you if you have a structurally normal heart if you've not been born with a heart problem if you've never had major heart attacks or heart failure none of these are going to be hugely dangerous uh but it is worth paying attention to these whilst you're waiting to seek help or get diagnosed because by uh describing them and by fitting them in one of these four categories it'll relieve your mind and you'll know exactly what it is uh and particularly if it is things like um you know normal rate normal Rhythm normal rate regular rhythm you can feel pretty confident that this is likely just to be anxiety induced um and if it's again if it's a fast rate normal Rhythm or regular rhythm and if if it's gradual on set gradual offset very very unlikely to be a heart rhythm disturbance the only heart rhythm disturbances you need to worry about and not even worry about but which are heart rhythm disturbances are atrial fibrillation which is generally fast and completely irregular or sometimes svts Etc which are sudden onset fast regular sudden offset all right so I hope this was useful I thought it would be quite useful just to try and show you that there are are only four different types of palpitations and if you actually think of it that way it'll help you define them better in your own mind and if you can Define them better in your own mind then it'll help you work out what these could be and what these are very very unlikely to be all right if your heart rhythm is regular you're not going to have atrial fibrillation it's not atrial fibrillation atrial fibrillation by definition is irregular all right if your heart rhythm is irregular then it's highly highly unlikely that you're going to be having an SVT avnrt VT those things all right if your rate is normal and your rhythm is normal it's highly highly unlikely that you're going to have a heart rhythm disorder in the first place it may just be anxiety Etc so if you get these palpitations try and do this and it'll make um some of the anxiety that they generate a lot less so I hope this was useful I will try and do some more videos I just wanted to keep do this quick one today and I'll try and do another one on um Saturday thank you so much thank you for all the lovely words thank you for your kindness thank you for your comments um if you uh enjoyed this video please consider sharing it please consider subscribing to it um and if you have any friends who may be interested please consider telling them about it the great news is either they'll get interested or I'll bore them to sleep either way they can't lose all right excellent bye

Channel: York Cardiology

Views: 321,577

Keywords: Heart palpitations anxiety, Heart palpitations causes, Heart palpitations symptoms, Heart palpitations treatment, Heart palpitations cure, Ventricular ectopics, Heart disease symptoms, Heart racing, Heart flutter causes, Racing heart, Fluttering heart, Heart skipping beats, Irregular heartbeat symptoms, Anxiety palpitations, Heart flutter symptoms, What causes your heart to race, non sustained ventricular tachycardia, ventricular tachycardia

Id: dzK0eGOeIDQ

Length: 15min 28sec (928 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 08 2017