Treatment of Palpitation/Arrhythmia

Heart palpitations are the feeling of having a fast or pounding heart.

Heart palpitations are one of the most common complaints in emergency departments and cardiology outpatient clinics. Heart palpitations, as the word meaning, express the acceleration of the heartbeats, the abnormality or irregularity of the beats. As a result of these changes in the work of the heart, the person may feel as if something is beating strongly in the neck or chest area. Heart palpitations create anxiety feeling for people. While most arrhythmias are harmless, some can be life-threatening. When the heart cannot send enough blood to the body during arrhythmia, shortness of breath, fainting, fainting and sometimes sudden death may occur.

It should be noted that approximately one third of all strokes are due to arrhythmia.

The most common symptom of arrhythmia is palpitation. The most common symptoms include the feeling of “misfire” in the heart, irregular heartbeats, dizziness, blackout, chest discomfort, pressure or pain, syncope (temporary loss of consciousness-fainting). When one or more of these symptoms occur, a specialist should be consulted. The type of arrhythmia can be determined with the heart electrode and thus the most appropriate treatment method can be selected. However, if the electrocardiogram could not be taken during heart palpitations, the rhythm “Holter” showing the heart rhythm in a certain time period can be performed. In addition to these methods in the diagnosis of arrhythmia; “transtelephonic holter” and implantable recording devices can also be used. Slowdowns in the heart may be an indication of a block in the conduction system, and its treatment is performed with permanent pacemakers; “Radiofrequency ablation” is used in the treatment of arrhythmia with causeless acceleration of the heart.

What are the Advantages of Ablation?

The most important advantage of ablation is the complete elimination of the problematic area causing the arrhythmia. It is not possible to achieve this with rhythm-regulating drugs. In ablation, there is a serious success rate of 70 – 99%, depending on the type of palpitation targeted and the severity of the disease. The recovery period after the operation is also very short. Almost all of the patients can return to their daily life within 1 day.

Another advantage of ablation is that it eliminates the need for lifelong rhythm-regulating drug therapy in most patients.

What Are the Risks of the Ablation Procedure?

As with all interventional operations, there are some risks in ablation. However, these risks are never more than the lifelong risks of the disease treated with ablation. The risks of ablation are negligible and insignificant, especially when applied by a specialist team and an experienced physician.

Ablation or Medication? Which Should I Prefer?

This is the issue on the minds of most patients. “What would happen if I did not have ablation, but continued my life with medication?” it is often asked. First of all, drug therapy is not a wrong way. If the person is completely free from his complaints and current rhythm disorders with medication, he can continue his life in that way. However, the most important issue here is the risk of worsening the underlying rhythm disorder in the coming years in most patients, even though it seems to have improved with medication. In many patients, the rhythm disorder generally starts from one point. Therefore, it is relatively easy to remove a single point with ablation in such patients, and in such cases, we usually provide complete recovery, which we call full cure. However, some rhythm disorders start from a single point and after a while (sometimes months or years later), they can spread to more than one point in the heart or cause another rhythm disorder (Atrial Fibrillation). In such cases, it means that it is too late, and even if ablation is performed at this stage, it is not always possible to achieve full cure or complete recovery.

The second important point is that rhythm-regulating drugs have serious side effects that can be of vital importance. These drugs have been around for 40-50 years. Ablation therapy, on the other hand, is the current treatment of our age, whose efficacy and safety have been well accepted in the last 20 years. In fact, while a person with arrhythmia has the opportunity to completely get rid of the rhythm disorder with ablation, preferring the drug treatment that was used 40-50 years ago, which carries the risk of vital side effects, means rejecting today’s opportunities and insisting on outdated treatment.

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Treatment of Palpitation/Arrhythmia