Arrhythmia – Irregular Heartbeat
Arrhythmia or Irregular Heartbeat is a condition of the heart wherein the heart throws clots into the body. There are highest chances of these clots getting deposited in the veins and blocking the normal flow of blood.
The diagnosis of this is very difficult. It appears like a mild heart attack. Tests like ECG are suggested initially. But it’s only a Doppler test which proves the condition mentioned above and is treated by a vascular surgeon.
The patient in this condition is kept on blood thinners so that the blood is thinner than the normal person and there is no clotting inside the body including the brain.Other medicines of high blood pressure are also given. There are many side effects of these blood thinners.
The worst being a small cut in any part of the body also results in huge blood loss and blood thinners prevent clotting. The blood pressure cannot even be measured by a sphygmomanometer as it’s irregular. Multiple readings are taken by manual instrument and an average taken for obtaining the correct blood pressure.
The patient can also suffer from paralysis and loses control over the body parts as brain stops functioning normally.
The final treatment is to install a pacemaker but many patient bodies do not accept a foreign element easily hence lifesavers try to avoid this and prefer medication. Blood transfusion can also result in reactions and hence they are not advised.
The patient has to be very careful and prevent any wounds.
Though we claim advances in technology and science there are still many grey areas which we have still not understood. In fact every person’s body is a mystery and behaves differently thereby posing a challenge of understanding it to the doctors….