Arrhythmias
Disorders of heart rhythm: beats that are too fast, too slow, or irregular.
When to seek care
Go to the emergency room if you lost consciousness, if palpitations come with chest pain or shortness of breath, or if a fast heartbeat does not settle after several minutes at rest. Book a visit if palpitations keep recurring, if you feel dizzy on standing, or if someone in your family died suddenly at a young age.
What it feels like
- Palpitations or a flip-flop sensation in the chest
- Dizziness or feeling faint
- Sudden shortness of breath
The heart beats because an electrical impulse travels through its chambers in a precise order. An arrhythmia is a fault in that path: the impulse starts where it should not, travels slower than normal, or is blocked.
Not all of them are dangerous. An occasional off-beat is common in healthy people. What changes the outlook is context: whether there was fainting, whether the heart already has structural damage, and whether sudden death runs in the family.
The diagnostic challenge is documentation. Because they tend to be intermittent, much of the work is catching the episode on an extended recording and matching it to what the patient felt at that hour.
An arrhythmia is a fault in that path. The diagram does not say which, or where.
This is the NORMAL path, and it is all the diagram draws. It does not point out where any particular arrhythmia starts, nor where it breaks down, because that depends on each case and the cardiologist determines it. It is not an anatomical section either, and it is not to scale: the inside of the heart is drawn on the echocardiogram page. It states no measurement.
- 01
- The impulse starts at one point
- 04
- And travels the chambers in order