Irregular heartbeats called atrial fibrillation can happen to anyone at any time it’s one of the issues with the heart that doesn’t have strict guidelines but if left untreated many people to end up with stroke dementia or heart disease.
Our continued partnership with Intermountain Medical Center find out some of the risk factors and why doctors say you can prevent it I didn’t think that at 43.
I would have a heart condition Lonnie Rasmussen has atrial fibrillation the most common heart arrhythmia or unregulated heart rhythm took its toll on him it causes a lot of symptoms dizziness shortness of breath fatigue anti Mountain Medical Center heart institute director of heart rhythm services dr. John Day says atrial fibrillation goes hand-in-hand with obesity but even after lifestyle changes Rasmussen needed surgery they actually go into the end of the heart with scopes and so forth intervene easily and they isolate the area that’s supposedly causing the misfire in the heart.
That causes it to be irregular and they cauterize it with a catheter ablation procedure what we’re trying to do is that we carefully map out three-dimensionally wherein the heart these abnormal electrical signals are coming from and then cauterize those areas thereby forcing the heart to hold the normal rhythm.
While the obese are most at risk other people are not exempt including physically fit athletes and even teenagers so the key is getting treated early as there is more scarring of the upper chamber of the heart then it becomes more difficult to treat and ignoring an irregular heartbeat increases your risk of stroke five times doubles your risk of heart failure and doubles the chance you’ll develop dementia or Alzheimer’s that’s all according to research done at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute.
You can reverse the condition this is something that if it can be caught early most cases can be cured and it’s often a combination of treatment whether the medications procedure or even lifestyle changes I’ve actually lost 80 pounds on top of the ablation and I think it’s probably more a combination of those two things than just the procedure.
Learn more about what is ectopic beat and treatment.
