ventricular or atrial?

[malan]

Hello,
I have been experiencing very irregular beats. Is there any way of distinguishing between ventricular and atrial fibrillation from the symptoms? The holter does not catch the arrhythmia due to sporadic episodes.
Thnx,
Malan

[malan]

Thnx very much for the posts.  One arrhythmia of mine has been identified as nsvt, on the holter. The irregular beats( different from what the holter caught) are yet to be identified. I am thinking of the event monitor to identify them.
Thnx again and regards,
Malan

[tom_h]

"The holter does not catch the arrhythmia due to sporadic episodes."

If your episodes are occasional, you do have a couple of other choices to catch the arrhythmia.  You could wear a 30 day monitor, a simple, external, 2 leaded device with replaceable electrode pads, or you could go with an implantable recorder the user wears for an extended period of time.

[is_something_wrong]

You're welcome.

Atrial fibrillation can't lead to ventricular fibrillation except with a heart defect known as WPW, where it in very rare cases can happen. PACs (and other atrial arrhythmias) never cause ventricular fibrillation.

Ventricular arrhythmias: Single PVCs do not cause ventricular fibrillation in healthy hearts. An arrhythmia known as ventricular tachycardia can cause ventricular fibrillation in some settings, but ventricular tachycardia is not an irregular heart rhythm, and very uncommon in healthy hearts.

Omega 3 can be beneficial in arrhythmias, but ask your doctor.

[malan]

One more question. Would Nordic Natural's Ultimate Omega3 oils help with irregular beats?
Thnx

[malan]

Thnx for the post. I wasn't sure that ventricular fibrillation leads to inevitable death. Now the next question is what are the chances of atrial fibrillation or ventricular arrhythmia degenerating into ventricular fibrillation?
Thnx again
Malan

[is_something_wrong]

Very easy to answer: Yes.

If you had ventricular fibrillation, you wouldn't be writing your post. You would be dead. Ventricular fibrillation = cardiac arrest. You don't have an irregular heart rhythm with ventricular fibrillation, you don't have a heart rhythm.

What is more difficult to know for sure (and maybe that's what you really are asking) is to differ other arrhythmias based on just checking the pulse. You can't differ ventricular and atrial premature beats by checking the pulse. Often, it's hard to differ premature beats in general from atrial fibrillation, because they both can manifest with irregular heart beats, runs of rapid heart beats, etc.

However, with atrial fibrillation, your heart rhythm is irregular and there is no system in the irregularity. Like 1--23----4--5-6-----7--89-10 etc.

With premature ventricular beats, the underlying rhythm is regular, but on occation, one heartbeat falls out, like 1--2--3--()--4--5--6--7 etc.

With premature atrial beats, the underlying rhythm is regular, but you can have short pauses and/or double beats, making the heart rhythm seem more irregular than with ventricular beats.

Other arrhythmias are usually recognized with rapid, regular rhythm.

I hope this helps.