A lot of people with atrial fibrillation may feel that something is wrong, but they are not sure of it. They usually feel that palpitations, which is also known as the shortness of breath. The heart rate of a person may also become faster during an atrial fibrillation, while some will not know about that too. There are some individuals that do not feel anything though, according to Dr. Robert Kim, MD, cardiologist. Atrial fibrillation may happen without any signs at all according to him. There are times when there are signs that are coming from the upper part of the chambers that slowed down the other parts of the heart. This may result in a stagnant heart rate. Those with the sensation might not be able to know about it.

How atrial fibrillation affects a person

Some individuals may just feel like their heart is beating out of tune and seems like it’s in a race. There is this one patient of Dr. Kim who suffers from it. He had a very quick heart rate with the atrial fibrillation without knowing about it. His patient was just 69 years of age when he had atrial fibrillation; his regular checkups with his doctor weren’t that successful to detect his health problem. This problem was detected when he was screened by a doctor before he travels.

There are some people who also suffer from atrial fibrillation that persists, but this patient’s case is not and it come and go, that makes a regular checkup not enough to detect it. Though atrial fibrillation doesn’t have signs at all, it is still a possible risk to people and it may cause damages too. This condition may affect the normal rhythm of the heart, it may cause rhythmic interruption. This condition may affect the consistency of the signal, instead of just having 1 clear signal; there will be an electrical storm at the upper chambers of the heart that will result in trembling. A perfect illustration is a bowl of gelatin.

The risks of afib

The risks of atrial fibrillation may be stroke and weakening of the muscles of the heart. The heart of the patient may show some signs of damages when his condition was exposed. When atrial fibrillation went fast, it can easily tire out the heart. This will result in declining of the pumping functions thus will result in a heart failure later on in life.  There are times when afib can be treated with proper medicines only. For the said patient, the perfect solution may be to do a catheter ablation, wherein a catheter will be threaded going to the artery of the heart. As soon as it is already in the heart, there will be a burst of electricity or severe coldness; this is just natural to ruin the tiny parts of the cells wherein the unwanted electrical signals are coming from. After which, the patient will feel quite tired and sore, but this is just normal and things will get back soon after a week.