Your heart is essentially divided into four chambers, each one of the working as well as possible to keep you alive and to keep on pumping blood in your body, but sometimes some problems can come up in any of these chambers and they don’t really mean that you are going to die, but they do mean you should see a doctor as soon as possible.
In this article we are going to look at the differences between atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter. These two have some similarities: they both occur in the upper chambers of the heart and they cause it to beat very rapidly, which will increase the risk of stroke in the individual. Both atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter are more common amongst people of advanced ages, or people with heart problems. These can be sustained, and they can also just come and go.
Usually, your heart receives an electric signal that is going to tell it how much blood needs to be pumped to your body so that you can function properly. In the case of atrial fibrillation, this signal isn’t regular and as such, parts of the heart cannot work in an organized manner, and then the heart cannot pump enough blood so that the body’s needs are met.
With atrial fibrillation the blood output that is lost is of only around 10% due to the distress that the heart suffers, and that is clearly a small amount. After years and years of evolution, your body is usually able to handle this without causing any symptoms or any problems at all, but people with a weaker system and people with other heart conditions are going to suffer from this small loss of blood being pumped in their body.
People with atrial fibrillation can get their heart rate up to twice as much as it should be and that clearly conveys certain risks, such as the risk of a stroke mentioned above. There are other risks involved as well, such as the risk of heart failure and dementia.
On the other hand we have atrial flutter, which shares some of the risks with atrial fibrillation, but also has some differences that can make a lot of difference. In atrial flutter, the electrical activity in the heart is coordinated, so the heart just pumps at an incredibly rapid rate that is usually of about 250 to 350 times per minute. This is too fast for the atrioventricular node to handle, which then causes the risks attached to atrial flutter to occur.
The causes for both atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter are worrisome and some of them can be avoided, while others are just going to be attached to us by nature itself and there is nothing we can do about it. They can occur even when there is no previous heart disorder present in our system, and they can usually be caused by high blood pressure, heart valve disorders, alcohol abuse, overactive glands and even defects on the heart.
There might be some further complications attached to atrial fibrillation and to atrial flutter, depending on how the condition develops in the individual. With these conditions, the atria can be unable to empty the ventricles whenever the heart beats and as such, it is possible that blood manages to stagnate inside the atria, which will enable the possibility of blood clots to form. Some of these pieces of clot can actually break free from the atria because of a treatment ( or even spontaneously) and can then manage to get into the blood stream. If this happens, it is possible that one of these clots manages to block a small artery, damaging the body in a considerate way. If the blocked artery is located in the brain, a stroke is going to be the result of the event.
On the other hand, it is possible that atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter cause the heart to beat so rapidly that the ventricles do not manage to fill with blood properly, making the heart decrease the amount of blood that is pumped to the body. If such thing happens, it is possible that the blood pressure starts falling rapidly, and that the consequence of such fall is heart failure.
What’s scary in atrial fibrillation and in atrial flutter is that there is a possibility of there being no symptoms present in the individual until it is too late. Unfortunately, more often than not, the first symptom of one of these conditions is a stroke caused by the blood clots mentioned above. Whenever one of these conditions is mild and causes the heart rate to only increase slightly, there will be no symptoms. If they aren’t mild, however, there will be an unpleasant feeling of discomfort in the chest.
If the heart has a reduced pumping ability, the individual might experience weakness, shortness of breath and faintness because their body isn’t getting enough blood running through it – meaning that it is “losing control”.
In order to diagnose both atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter, doctors usually perform blood tests to try to look for an overactive thyroid gland. Other than that, they usually perform an ultrasonography of the heart, so that they can evaluate the heart and look for blood clots located in the atria. If doctors find something, they will surely start treatment as soon as possible in order to keep the individual safe.