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american heart health

Director of the Heart Rhythm Center at Stony Brook Heart Institute Dr. Eric Rashba is holding the new Watchman FLX device, which provides protection from strokes for people with atrial fibrillation. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine

The butterflies that color backyards are welcome companions for spring and summer. The ones that flutter towards the upper part of people’s chests can be discomforting and disconcerting.

In an effort to spread the word about the most common form of heart arrhythmia amid American Heart Month, the Stony Brook Heart Institute recently held a public discussion of Atrial fibrillation, or A-fib.

Caused by a host of factors, including diabetes, chronic high blood pressure, and advanced age, among others, A-fib can increase the risk of significant long-term health problems, including strokes.

In atrial fibrillation, the heart struggles with mechanical squeezing in the top chamber, or the atrium. Blood doesn’t leave the top part of the heart completely and it can pool and cause clots that break off and cause strokes.

Dr. Eric Rashba, who led the call and is the director of the Heart Rhythm Center at Stony Brook Heart Institute, said in an interview that A-fib is becoming increasingly prevalent.

A-fib “continues to go up rapidly as the population ages,” Rashba said. It occurs in about 10% of the population over 65. “As the population ages, we’ll see more of it.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 12.1 million people in the United States will have A-fib over the next decade.

As with many health-related issues, doctors advised residents to try to catch any signs of A-fib early, which improves the likely success of remedies like drugs and surgery.

“We prefer to intervene as early as possible in the course of A-fib,” Dr. Ibraham Almasry, cardiac electrophysiologist at the Stony Brook Heart Institute, said during a call with three other doctors. “The triggers tend to be more discreet and localized and we can target them more effectively.”

Different patients have different levels of awareness of A-fib as it’s occurring.

“Every single patient is different,” said Dr. Roger Ran, cardiac electrophysiologist at the Stony Brook Heart Institute. Some people feel an extra beat and could be “incredibly symptomatic,” while others have fatigue, shortness of breath, chest discomfort, and dizziness.

Still other patients “don’t know they are in it and could be in A-fib all the time.”

Doctors on the call described several monitoring options to test for A-fib.

Dr. Abhijeet Singh, who is also a cardiac electrophysiologist at the Stony Brook Heart Institute, described how the technology to evaluate arrhythmias has improved over the last 20 years.

“People used to wear big devices around their necks,” Singh said on the call, which included about 150 people. “Now, the technology has advanced” and patients can wear comfortable patches for up to 14 days, which record every single heartbeat and allow people to signal when they have symptoms.

Patients can also use an extended holter monitor, which allows doctors to track their heartbeat for up to 30 days, while some patients receive implantable recorders, which doctors insert under the skin during a five-minute procedure. The battery life for those is 4.5 years.

Additionally, some phones have apps that record heartbeats that patients can send by email, Singh said. “We have come a long way in a few years.”

Dr. Roger Fan, a cardiac electrophysiologist at the Stony Brook Heart Institute, added that all these technologies mean that “we are virtually guaranteed to get to the bottom” of any symptoms.

Drugs vs. surgery

Doctors offer patients with confirmed cases of A-fib two primary treatment options: drugs or surgery.

The surgical procedure is called an ablation and involves entering the body through veins in the groin and freezing or burning small areas that are interfering with the heart’s normal rhythm. The procedure breaks up the electrical signals in irregular heartbeats.

Performed under general anesthetic, the procedure generally takes two to three hours. Patients can return home the same day as the operation, Rashba said.

As with any surgery, an ablation has some risks, such as stroke or heart attack, which Rashba said are “very rare” and occur in fewer than one percent of the cases. Additionally, patients may have groin complications, although that, too, has declined as doctors have used ultrasound to visualize the blood vessels.

In extremely rare occasions, some patients also have damage to the esophagus behind the heart, said Rashba, who is also a professor of medicine.

For patients experiencing symptoms like A-fib, doctors recommended a trip to the emergency room, at least the first time.

“If it’s not going away, one, you can reassure yourself, two, you can get treatment, and three, you can get a diagnosis quickly,” said Almasry.

The Stony Brook doctors said choosing the best treatment option depends on the patient.

“Everybody has different manifestations of their A-fib,” said Fan.

Among other questions, doctors consider how dangerous the A-fib is for the patients, how severe the symptoms are, and how much they affect the quality of life.

Doctors urged residents to make the kind of healthy lifestyle choices that keep other systems functioning effectively. Almasry cited a direct correlation between obesity and A-fib.

Reducing body weight by 10%, while keeping the weight off, can reduce the likelihood of A-fib recurrence, he said.

To commemorate American Heart Month, February is dedicated to heart disease research and heart health care.  Dawn Blatt, a resident of Miller Place, had a heart attack on Feb. 20, 2012, while on vacation with her family and chooses to share her story.

While in California, she began feeling chest pressure that lasted about 20 minutes and eventually went away. She thought it was nothing, and didn’t want to say anything or ruin the trip.

“About two hours later, when we were sitting in the hotel, that chest pressure came back and actually got worse,” she said. “I started getting pain down my left arm, the chest pressure turned to some pain. I was feeling anxious.”

Blatt knew something was going on and she had to act on it. She was getting ready to head into the elevator to catch a ride to the hospital in a city she didn’t know when her husband called 911. 

The paramedics did vitals and were talking about EKG changes in her hotel room. Blatt, a physical therapist, heard terms that are usually said to her patients — not typically to her. 

The then 46-year-old was taken by ambulance to the hospital and after talking with a doctor, he said that she did indeed have a heart attack.

“That sense of denial that I was having the whole time even though I knew what the symptoms would correlate to was still a shock for me to hear those words,” she said. “And everybody that came in to the room kept saying, ‘Oh, you’re so young!’ and that really got me angry after a while because obviously I wasn’t too young — I had a heart attack.”

The mother of two did not have previous signs or symptoms. She didn’t have the risk factors that would lead people to think she would have a heart attack. Blatt said she was always on the treadmill and was an active person.

“The recovery was physically and emotionally challenging for me,” she said. 

In California, to address her cardiac catheterization, one stent was put in her left anterior descending artery in her heart during 1st cardiac catheterization, and four more were added when she came home to New York. 

Nearly nine years after the heart attack, Blatt now has no restrictions or limitations. 

“I feel like I was lucky,” she said. “But since then, I have started to learn about the fact that so many women are not aware of risk factors, or that the signs of a heart attack can be different for women, especially.”

So, she’s using her voice to talk to others and build a supportive community for people who’ve have been through similar situations. An active member of the national organization WomenHeart, she’s there for other women who have dealt with heart problems big and small.  

“The women that I have met through WomenHeart are my heart sisters, and they’re the people that get it,” she said. “It’s so helpful to be able to ask questions of people who’ve been through similar experiences, and that can help give you support or ask questions. That’s why I have decided to help spread the word, raise awareness and support other women living with heart disease.”

Blatt added that sharing her story with others not only gives them someone they can relate to, but is a healing experience for her, as well.

According to Blatt, she has learned a lot of facts about heart health from the nonprofit. WomenHeart has a directory of scientific data, links, an advisory panel of doctors and researchers throughout the country, and is trustworthy and credible.

She said, for women specifically, it’s important to know that heart disease is the leading cause of death for women and there are plenty of signs to know when something wrong is happening. 

“A lot of people think, ‘Younger women don’t have heart attacks, they don’t have heart disease,’ but I’ve met so many women in their 20s, 30s and 40s with various forms of heart disease,” she said. “It’s not just an old man’s disease anymore — it’s affecting women.”

Blatt said there’s more to a heart attack then pressure pain in the left arm, and it’s not “just an anxiety attack.”

“Pay attention, seek medical attention, seek medical care, get answers to your signs and symptoms, and if you’re not happy with what they’re telling you, get a second opinion,” she said. “When women go to the ER, if they think they’re having a heart attack, use the words ‘I think I’m having a heart attack.’ That will get you in, otherwise you’re going to be waiting. When you’re having a heart attack, the quicker you get in and get treated, the less damage you can have.”

Friday, Feb. 5, is National Wear Red Day. Everyone is encouraged to wear red and raise support for American heart health.