Posted by Sarah on February 04, 2004 at 02:08:07:
In Reply to: Re: heart flutter posted by Glenn Camp on February 03, 2004 at 20:51:36:
Glenn,
Afib and Aflutter are cousins. Afib is chaotic and fast, and Aflutter is regular, but very fast (250-400BPM). I was told years ago, that the Aflutter might cause my ventricles to speed up...trying to catch up and stay with the atrium. This was supposed to be worse, because then I could go into ventricular flutter/fibrilation. Guess I don't know for sure if he was right or not.
My statement about Aflutter being "worse" comes from "my" experience with it. When it went that fast, I would get faint.
In the medical dictionary, Aflutter is a single re-entrant electrical impulse going round/round, causing very fast, but regular 250-400BPM. Consequently, it's easier to find, if the Afib isn't cluttering up the fluroscope and masking it. That's why, after Dr.S. killed my AF, he could find the Aflutter.
Afib is chaotic, and as my first EP said, mine looked like fireworks going off from every direction, so he couldn't map it! The Afib heart quivers like jello. Aflutter while beating very fast, isn't emptying out all the blood into the ventricle. They BOTH can cause blood clots and stroke because they don't push all the blood, and it pools.
I could Afib at lower beats per minute like 120, but Aflutter so fast, that even with a stethescope, we couldn't count the beats, it was going so fast. I hated it. Also, Aflutter, combined with AV block, or junctional rhythm, could be more dangerous than "regular" Afib. (I just read that on Medscape, but can't the source again)
I don't think the text books rate flutter worse than Afib, (they usually put them together), but when MY heart got going over 200+, it always scared me more!
Sarah