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Irregular Heartbeat
Question:
Subj: Re: Irregular Heartbeat I have also had irregular heartbeats since I began running in 1986, but in July 1991, one Sunday a few hours after running 7 or so miles, I noticed my heart beat was very strange, and that I felt slightly faint when I changed positions quickly. I went to the Dr., who said I was in Atrial Fibrillation and sent me to a cardiologist. To make a long story
There was a recent item (in sci.med I think) about a double-blind study in Canada (or maybe it was New England) of people with atrial fibrillation. It was found that a low-dose Warfarin regime reduced the incidence of strokes by 79%. Although it did not say, the inference is that having atrial fibrillation increases the incidence of strokes. (Someone that I know with AF has recently suffered a stroke). Cheers, Brien Halpin. Industrial Research Ltd. New Zealand.
Response:
It was found that a low-dose Warfarin regime reduced the incidence of strokes by 79%.
No kidding. We used to use that stuff out on the farm as rat poison. Very few of them suffered strokes. The side effects were substantial though. -Jon Papai
Response:
There was a recent item (in sci.med I think) about a double-blind study in Canada (or maybe it was New England) of people with atrial fibrillation. It was found that a low-dose Warfarin regime reduced the incidence of strokes by 79%. Although it did not say, the inference is that having atrial fibrillation increases the incidence of strokes. (Someone that I know with AF has recently suffered a stroke).
As I learned when I had my episode of AF, when your atria are not pumping (which is what AF is), blood clots can form inside. When they get dislodged (after one goes back to a normal heartbeat) they can cause strokes. Hence, they are careful about restoring people in AF to normal – if they have been like that for more than a day or two, they put them on blood thinners for two weeks first. As I understand it, most people who suffer from episodes of AF have underlying heart disease and tend to not really notice when they are in it, thus making it more likely to cause clotting and stroke. My cardio said that athletic people with no heart disease that have AF tend to notice it immediately if it happens (as I did) so aren’t at increased risk for stroke. My cardiologist also said that what happened to me wasn’t *that* rare, although since I haven’t heard anything similar in response to my previous post, I don’t know… Alan Disclaimer – I’m not a M.D., the above is just my understanding. Alan Saldinger Voice (408) 321-5201 Hardware Engineering Mngr. Fax (408) 321-6736 890 Tasman Drive, M/S 01-01 Milpitas, CA 95035
Response:
I have also had irregular heartbeats since I began running in 1986, but in July 1991, one Sunday a few hours after running 7 or so miles, I noticed my heart beat was very strange, and that I felt slightly faint when I changed positions quickly. I went to the Dr., who said I was in Atrial Fibrillation and sent me to a cardiologist. To make a long story shorter, I ended up being shocked with 200 KJoules to the chest the next day to get my heartbeat regular again (apparently this is the treatment method of choice for AF if Dan Qualye isn’t waiting in the wings). After lots of tests that week, my cardiologist told me their was no underlying heart disease, but that my atrial arrythmia makes it more likely this would happen to me. He (and the other cardiologist I consulted for a 2nd opinion) said that in cases like mine it often is a one-time occurance and would never happen again, but sometimes certain "healthy" people will go into AF often. I resumed running about a week after this episode (I’m 34 and run 20 – 25 miles/wk) and have had no problems since then, although I’m still taking a anti-arrythmia medication. My Dr. said I could go off it anytime, but that I may go into AF again – (while the memory of the burn marks on my chest was fresh, I was reluctant, although I am considering it now). I’d like to write/talk with some other runners who have had this problem to exchange experiences on recurrance, meds., etc. If interested please E-MAIL me. Thanks, Alan Alan Saldinger Voice (408) 321-5201 Hardware Engineering Mngr. Fax (408) 321-6736 890 Tasman Drive, M/S 01-01 Milpitas, CA 95035
Response:
he’s also a marathon runner, and this sounds like something that was mentioned earlier on rec.running — where runners have such low heartbeats that they start getting irregularities. anyone know what this syndrome
People in excellent aerobic condition can have resting heart rates so low that parts of the heart that do not normally pace the heart can start producing beats. In anyone (whether it is due to conditioning or a problem with the heart’s normal pacemaker) these are called escape beats. The most common location for these escape beats in a runner would be the AV junction and so they would be called junctional escape beats. If they came from the ventricle then they would be ventricular escape beats. — David Rind
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…..[stuff deleted] recently this subject came up on rec.running. well, turns out that i need to get some info on it now. a few weeks ago, my father got some "chest pain" at night. said "chest pain" info would be most appreciated…. Hello Lamont, nice to see how you care about your father, my son would probably not be worried about me 
. If you are intersted I can send you a couple of postings about irreg. heartbeats. They were discussed some months ago in this group and I collected some of them. I also had some of these "stumbling events", but *never* connected with any kind of pain. If this would be the case, I would be *very* carefully ! BTW, my rest pulse is something below 40, in peek times of training even about 35. I heard of (professional) cyclists with rest pulses even below 30. wolf — … always look on the bright side of life … (Monty Python) GMD-FIRST an der TU Berlin German National Research Centre Tel. (Berlin 030/049) 6704-2650 for Computer Science
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Keeping in mind the usual disclaimers, the following -may- be the deal. If the "sinus" system is afu, there is a backup based a bit lower in the electro-physiology chain called the AV node. this has an intrinsic rate of (roughly) 40-60 beats/minute. If the SA node doens’t work, or if it is diseased so that more than 1.5 secs goes by without a signal, then the AV node will kick in.
Is this true? Does AV block mean that the AV system wouldn’t work, or would be impaired, in the event of SA block?? I had a heartbeat around 100 and a little over REGULARLY throughout pregnancy. It went up to 140 sustained & landed me in the hospital. Now that I’m not pregnant, my heartbeat is 70-80 bpm. Drove me NUTS to have it over 100, but the doctors did not seem to care. I have high blood pressure as well and that did disturb them. Any thoughts on what might cause this pregnancy induced tachycardia? — Amy Moseley Rupp Mother to Elizabeth AnneMarie, (512) 329-7117
Response:
<I kept original posting in here because it’s pretty much needed to make sense of the answer at the end… – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -recently this subject came up on rec.running. well, turns out that i need to get some info on it now. a few weeks ago, my father got some "chest pain" at night. said "chest pain" was on his chest, but sort of low and on the side. upon reflection both his doctor and myself figure it was some kind of muscle spasms or something benign. however, he went into the hospital and the cardiologist freaked over his EKG. he had some kind of "abnormalities" which might have indicated a heart attack, or something unusual. he was put under observation, etc, etc ad nauseum. when they put him on the stress test, at baseline, his heart was having irregularities, but as soon as his heartbeat picked up, they stopped, and then he went off the scale on the test with no further irregularities. he’s also a marathon runner, and this sounds like something that was mentioned earlier on rec.running — where runners have such low heartbeats that they start getting irregularities. anyone know what this syndrome is called and where you can get more info on it? it sounds like the likely thing to me, because his heartbeat is so low that when he was trying to go to sleep in the hospital it kept on setting off the alarms on the heartbeat monitors (apparently they were set to go off after some number of minutes below 40 bpm which is normal for him when he goes to sleep). info would be most appreciated…. — "When dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases." – Robert Anton Wilson
Keeping in mind the usual disclaimers, the following -may- be the deal. The heart has a number of different mechanisms to ensure a heart rate (or, for our purpsoes, we can use the term pulse rate) that is, as we say, compatable with life. It is a pretty intellignetly designed system. there is the primary regulator, called the "sinus" (or "SA node") which has a -normal- rate of about 60-100+ beats/minute. (anything above 100 is considered fast, or in medical terms, "tachicardic" (tach=fast, cardic=heart). Short term rates of 100 are usually ok, i.e. if you’re running to catch a bus, but the time/rate curve is dependant on genreal health, etc. If the "sinus" system is afu, there is a backup based a bit lower in the electro-physiology chain called the AV node. this has an intrinsic rate of (roughly) 40-60 beats/minute. If the SA node doens’t work, or if it is diseased so that more than 1.5 secs goes by without a signal, then the AV node will kick in. There is yet another backup, called the ventricular system, which has an intrinsic rate of (roughly) 30-40. so if neither of the two faster nodes "fires," these will. again: normal: SA Node 60-100 bkup-1: AV node 40-60 bkup-2: ventric 20-40 what -sometimes- happens in runners is that they’re cardiac and pulmonary "efficiency" (it isn’t quite this, but the term will do for a non-medical discussion), is exceptional enough that the "normal/SA" heart rate only needs to be about, say, 45 beats.minute. Or, let’s get extreme here, and say that it can fall down to 30 bpm (unlikley, but we’re theorizing) The problem is that the rest of the cardiac system doesn’t "realize" that this slow rate is ok, so they begin to come on line and "fire". technically, these (more or less exra) beats are called "escape" beats. They look pretty scary on an ekg, and while in and of themselves are not usually a problem, they -can- sometime kick off some nasty consequences. treating this "problem" can be a bit scary. Again, assuming there’s nothing wrong with the person’s cardiac system, and the sole reason for a slow intrinsic rate is that the body is doing fine at 30-40 bpm, the docs have some pretty hairy decisions (again, we’re talking worst case here). There are medical ways of blocking these lower level backup mechanisms, so that the escape beats can be prevented, but the danger here is: what happens if these systems are needed? If the person’t SA node (the "top" regulator) fails, and the secondary routines are blocked, the results can be pretty dramatic. reminder about all the usual disclaimers…..
Response:
recently this subject came up on rec.running. well, turns out that i need to get some info on it now. a few weeks ago, my father got some "chest pain" at night. said "chest pain" was on his chest, but sort of low and on the side. upon reflection both his doctor and myself figure it was some kind of muscle spasms or something benign. however, he went into the hospital and the cardiologist freaked over his EKG. he had some kind of "abnormalities" which might have indicated a heart attack, or something unusual. he was put under observation, etc, etc ad nauseum. when they put him on the stress test, at baseline, his heart was having irregularities, but as soon as his heartbeat picked up, they stopped, and then he went off the scale on the test with no further irregularities. he’s also a marathon runner, and this sounds like something that was mentioned earlier on rec.running — where runners have such low heartbeats that they start getting irregularities. anyone know what this syndrome is called and where you can get more info on it? it sounds like the likely thing to me, because his heartbeat is so low that when he was trying to go to sleep in the hospital it kept on setting off the alarms on the heartbeat monitors (apparently they were set to go off after some number of minutes below 40 bpm which is normal for him when he goes to sleep). info would be most appreciated…. — "When dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases." — Robert Anton Wilson