What Are The Symptoms of Atrial Fibrillation

If you have atrial fibrillation, early detection is the best defense. But how can you know if you have atrial fibrillation?

If you have a cardiologist or are being examined for heart disease, your doctor may be able to determine if you have atrial fibrillation by doing a surface ECG. An ECG is a curved line “picture” of the electrical activity going on in the heart. The electricity of the heart is measured by electrodes that are attached to the surface of the skin (that’s why it’s called a “surface” ECG).

However, you may have atrial fibrillation that may not be present precisely at the moment the doctor is recording your surface ECG. So you can have a normal-looking ECG and yet still suffer from atrial fibrillation.

Atrial fibrillation may first be detected by evaluating the symptoms caused. These symptoms can range from quite mild to very severe, even debilitating. In the earliest stages, atrial fibrillation may not cause any symptoms at all. However, the most typical symptoms are any of these (alone or in combination):

• A heart rate that seems irregular or “off”
  
• Rapidly beating heart
  
• Palpitations, fluttering or pounding in the chest
  
• Sweating
  
• Chest pain
  
• Lightheadedness, dizziness, even to the point of actually fainting
  
• Shortness of breath at mild or no exertion
  
• Anxiety
  
• Fatigue
  
• Inability to exert yourself

 

Some of these symptoms are a little bit vague. For instance, there are many reasons why you may be feeling fatigue, and even symptoms like dizziness or chest pain can be caused by things other than heart disease.

However, if you have these symptoms, you should see your physician and discuss your concerns about atrial fibrillation.

If your doctor suspects you have atrial fibrillation, he or she may ask you to wear a heart monitor. This is a portable external device that connects a recorder to some patches (electrodes) that are placed with adhesive on your chest.. The monitor’s job is to record your ECG over a long period of time, usually more than 24 hours and records rhythms in various activities. The ECG is stored in memory and then downloaded for technicians to analyze. The idea behind an ambulatory monitor (it’s also sometimes called a Holter monitor) is that your arrhythmia is more likely to show up if doctors can get an ECG covering a long period of time.

Sometimes, your doctor will readily determine your atrial fibrillation because it is fairly persistent. That’s even a name for one stage of atrial fibrillation: persistent AF.

Once atrial fibrillation is diagnosed, your doctor will talk to you about how it can be treated. Although atrial fibrillation can be intermittent (come and go), for most people, once you have it, you have it. While it might go away for a period of time it will eventually return.

Atrial fibrillation can occur suddenly, even in people who had no previous history of the condition. That’s why periodic check-ups and ECGs are important for people who have or think they might have atrial fibrillation. Your doctor can advise you if you are at particularly high risk for atrial fibrillation.

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