Premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) are extra heartbeats that begin in one of the heart’s two lower pumping chambers, the ventricles. Because these extra beats disrupt your heart’s normal rhythm, PVCs can cause you to feel as if your heart just fluttered or skipped a beat. In this case, that’s not a sign of true love, […]
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If your heart has an arrhythmia, it has a problem with the rhythm, kind of like that uncle who’ll be dancing when Mariah Carey comes on Spotify at your upcoming family holiday party. With your heart, arrhythmia makes it beat too quickly (tachycardia) or too slowly (bradycardia). We’ve discussed all sorts of different aspects of
Different Strokes For Different Folks Read More »
Dr. Smith is a cardiac electrophysiologist, giving him extensive training, expertise, and experience treating arrhythmias and heart disorders. Many of the issues he deals with are due to malfunctions in the patient’s electrical system. So you better understand what happens, it helps to understand the basic electrical system in the human heart. Normal heart Our
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It can sound scary, but sometimes the best way to stop an abnormal heart rhythm is by destroying some of the heart tissue. This is known as cardiac ablation and Dr. Smith performs this procedure. What is cardiac ablation? The goal of cardiac ablation is to destroy the pathway of the abnormal rhythm. This is
This time of year, we all like to get together and celebrate life. But to do that, you have to be there…literally. While many people can have occasional arrhythmias (abnormal heart rhythms), if you also have heart disease it dramatically increases your odds of a heart attack. Since Dr. Smith makes it his business to
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It’s easy to assume if we have something like an arrhythmia that’s it’s a defect of some sort within our heart or our nervous system. Most people assume it’s a homegrown problem. Truth be told, it could all be due to something you’re eating, drinking, or taking. Since Dr. Smith is all about keeping your
Different Stuff Can Be Behind Your Abnormal Heart Rhythm Read More »
Premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) are extra, abnormal heartbeats that begin in one of your ventricles (the heart’s two lower pumping chambers). Since they aren’t supposed to happen, these extra heartbeats tend to disrupt your normal heart rhythm. This can feel as if your heart just performed a gymnastics flip-flop or as if it skipped a
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For some patients, Dr. Smith can treat their cardiac arrhythmia with medications. When taken exactly as prescribed, medications can work really well. Plus, they can be used in patients with arrhythmia to help prevent heart attack and stroke. These are the different drugs Dr. Macy may use for treatment. Antiarrhythmic drugs Tachycardias and premature beats
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Song lyrics are full of talk of heartbeats. But one in particular gets Dr. Smith’s attention: My heart skips a beat. Yeah, that’s not love. That’s arrhythmia, the medical term for an irregular heartbeat. Arrhythmia doesn’t necessarily mean your heart is beating too fast or too slow; it’s just out of normal rhythm. You could
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You don’t usually give your heartbeat a second thought. Sure, maybe after you’ve run up a flight of stairs and you can feel your heartbeat in your neck, then you notice it. But most of the time it’s just there. Until things get out of whack. That’s where Dr. Smith comes in, when your heartbeat
Your Heart’s Wiring Read More »
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