Pricks, freezes, “tumbles”
I periodically have a tingling sensation in the area of my heart, why?
– This is a vegetative phenomenon, the pain is not entirely of cardiac origin . Short-term tingling in the chest occurs more often in adolescents, young adults, and children. In their words, “it really hurts my heart.” But, fortunately, they have no real heart problems. In fact, unstable growing vessels that are not adapted to life react this way to strong emotions and stress. Stitching pain in the left side of the chest is not terrible, especially in adolescents, and is not life-threatening.
You should pay attention to tingling sensations in your chest if they become frequent, bother you all day, or are associated with your body position. Then we go to the doctor and rule out cardiac pathology: we do an electrocardiogram, he explains the symptoms. Sometimes such stabbing pains are associated with interruptions in the functioning of the heart, inflammation of a passing nerve or pectoral muscle.
Why does your heart sometimes skip a beat and skip a beat?
– The heart rate can be erratic for many reasons. Among them are problems with the heart itself, the thyroid gland located just above, and frequent stress. Heart rhythm disturbances of a vegetative nature are of two types: daytime (associated with the work of the sympathetic nervous system (adrenaline release)) and nighttime (the so-called “kingdom of the vagus” - a nerve that is active when we lie down and sleep).
“Freezing” of the heart or a feeling of freezing and tumbling in the chest is considered a classic sign of extrasystoles - premature contractions of the heart. The fact is that a separate contraction came out of order, and the pause after it, trying to balance the rhythm, is delayed. A short run of such extraordinary contractions feels like coughing.
A sharp decrease in heart rate, fraught with dizziness and fainting, is a consequence of inflammation or infarction of the heart muscle, weakness of the cardiac pacemaker.
Oddly enough, interruptions in heart function may be normal. There is no need to panic because of one “somersault” in the chest, much less take medication right away.
...Sometimes the heart beats so loudly that its beat can be felt in the throat.
– The carotid arteries located on the sides of the neck help sense the heartbeat. When the pulse quickens, the arteries begin to pulsate more strongly, and due to this there is a feeling that the heart is “jumping out of the chest.” Low stress tolerance and the desire to take everything “to heart” increase the volume in your headphones.
Is it normal if your heart rate becomes much faster after a regular trip to the store?
- Of course, this is a burden. There is a special formula to estimate the increase in heart rate due to physical activity: (220 – age) × 0.75 . The resulting number is your submaximal heart rate, which evaluates whether the exercise is suitable for you. The formula is used during training, but not after going to the store across the street.
If palpitations occur, measure your pulse rate and compare it with the figure obtained from the formula .
Sometimes it seems to us that the pulse is frequent, but when calculated, its values do not reach 80 beats per minute. If your pulse still does not meet the desired number, and you are young and beautiful, just remember the last time you walked around the city or did morning exercises. Low physical activity does not train your heart rate, and its increase due to an unusual load will be greater than that of those who run kilometers a day.
Danger of incorrect positioning
Dextrocardia itself does not pose a threat to the patient. People also live with the right heart, their health is no worse than that of people with the normal location of the organ. Only untimely detection of this disorder can lead to a doctor’s mistake during surgical intervention in emergency cases, when the patient is not examined first.
Danger to humans arises when dextrocardia is accompanied by other heart diseases. The presence of additional congenital defects can lead to extremely adverse consequences.
Cardiologists identify several heart defects that can occur along with dextrocardia. These include the following diseases:
- Endocardial defect.
- Pulmonary artery stenosis.
- Hole in the interventricular septum.
Also, the most common pathology accompanying dextrocardia is Kartagener-Sievert syndrome. With it, there is always an incorrect arrangement of organs and a violation of the structure of the respiratory tract. Male patients with this syndrome often suffer from infertility.
In some cases, the development of abnormal location of the heart is observed along with diseases of the abdominal organs. Patients often experience a concomitant disease such as heterotaxy syndrome. In this case, patients do not have a spleen or it is underdeveloped.
Arrhythmia
What is arrhythmia?
– Arrhythmia is a concept that combines irregular contractions associated with slowing down or speeding up the conduction of a nerve impulse through certain areas of the heart muscle. With any suspicion of arrhythmia, it is better to go to the doctor.
What are her symptoms?
– An extraordinary contraction like an extrasystole is felt as a “turning over” in the chest, followed by freezing. If there was a run of several extrasystoles, a dry cough will occur.
Slowing down of the conduction impulse by the type of AV block can be manifested by dizziness, flashing “spots” before the eyes, the same freezing in the chest, and in extreme cases, fainting. The reason for such a bright clinic is the prolonged pause during the transition of the conductive impulse from the upper parts of the heart to the lower parts and the lack of oxygen delivery to the brain. At first it doesn't bother me at all. Rare “floaters” before the eyes can always be attributed to the weather, but fainting and daily dizziness are a reason to consult a doctor.
Heart attack
Does your heart always hurt when there are problems with it?
– In fact, pain is not the only sign of heart problems. In addition, the very concept of heart pain must be distinguished from other chest pains. A classic sign of a diseased heart is a feeling of constriction, squeezing along the front surface of the chest during movement (usually walking), which goes away when stopping and resting for a few minutes. The equivalent of heart pain is shortness of breath with the same characteristics (connection with movement, short rest), however, it occurs more often in old age.
Unfortunately, a heart attack can be completely asymptomatic or manifest itself as impaired speech, coordination of movements, disorientation, and unilateral weakness in the arms and legs (signs of a stroke).
And if there is not always pain during a heart attack, how can you understand that it is a heart attack?
– The best way to recognize a heart attack is to do a cardiogram, but not for everyone, but if you suspect one. A heart attack can be suspected if: pressing and squeezing pain in the middle of the chest, aggravated by walking; severe shortness of breath (at rest), loss of consciousness, sudden weakness in the arms and legs on one side . And more stomach pain. If they are strong, accompanied by profuse sweating, weakness, nausea, vomiting, you must remember to take an ECG. Because this is how the abdominal form of myocardial infarction begins.
Does a pressing sensation in the heart area only occur due to a heart attack?
– If the pressure is constant, look for high pressure. Less commonly, problems with the spine, such as a hernia. Pressure in the chest that increases when bending over is a sign of fluid accumulation in the heart sac (pericardium).
Stress
I get nervous a lot, is it bad for my heart?
– Emotional experiences are the number one risk factor. They trigger all diseases, but heart diseases most of all. Under stress, the body releases hormones that trigger the activity of the hormones of the sympathetic nervous system, which in turn increase heart rate and increase blood pressure. Such coordinated work of the body under stress is a protective reaction aimed at survival, because all organs begin to work an order of magnitude faster. Naturally, the heart and blood vessels wear out earlier.
How can you protect yourself from this?
– First, you need to sit down and figure out where stress comes from , analyze what you were doing at the moment when your heart rate increased, and compare causes and consequences. We wrote down all the reasons in a week - find easily removable ones and work on them.
Secondly, decide whether you have goals in life. If not, install them. One, two, three, up to 100 per year . It is very motivating and creates a framework against all diseases, including heart diseases. Especially if this goal ignites a person and contributes to a better world. Many people do not understand that a person lives for something, and does not just go to work, eat and drink, and raise children. Believe me, a focused person will get sick less often.
Thirdly, meditation . Many work centers abroad, in the USA for example, have relaxation rooms with soothing music, meditation rooms, and arrange lunch breaks outside the institution in order to switch attention from work to recuperation.
Fourthly, no one has canceled effective time management . When a person performs several jobs at the same time, and is also distracted, attention is scattered so much that there is no strength left for rest and self-love, and what can be done in three bets, focusing and resting, is done in a year.
Can sedatives help?
- They can. If a person himself is not able to cope with the problem, find its causes and pull them out by the roots. There are many sedatives, alcohol tinctures (a favorite first aid remedy for older people), herbal tablets, and, in extreme cases, chemicals.
But we must remember that by taking medications, we rather relieve ourselves of responsibility for the fact that we do not change anything in life, and the stress does not go away.
[email protected]: Why does the heart beat?
Most of us know that the heart is a pump. It pumps the blood in our body, thus making life possible. But what an amazing pump this is! With each beat, the heart pumps out about 100 cubic centimeters of blood. In a day, this amounts to about 10,000 liters of blood, which is pumped through the blood vessels. During an average lifespan, the heart pumps about 250 million liters of blood! Each beat of the human heart occurs in approximately 0.8 seconds. The heart makes about one hundred thousand beats a day and rests the same amount between beats. In general, this rest is 6 hours for the whole day. What we call the “beat” of the heart is the contraction and relaxation of muscles. During contraction, blood is pushed out; during relaxation, a new portion of blood enters the heart. But this does not happen in a simple way, like, for example, you can unclench or clench your fist. The contraction occurs in waves, starting at the bottom of the heart and moving upward. What makes the heart beat? Does the impulse for contraction and relaxation come from somewhere? Or does it happen on its own? This is one of the most mysterious questions in biology, and much remains a mystery. Let me tell you about one interesting experiment that has been known for hundreds of years. Let's say you took a chicken egg and placed it in an incubator for 26 hours. Now let's open it and, using a magnifying glass, examine those films in the egg from which the chicken's heart will later develop. You will see these films break! Even before the films become a heart, they are already beating! Now suppose you remove these films and allow them to grow in a favorable environment. If you cut a growing heart into six pieces, each piece will continue to beat at the same rate. How to explain this? We do not know. All we can say is that the heart has a certain characteristic of automatic contraction. And one of the secrets of life - why the heart beats - remains a mystery!
So that blood goes here and there here and there and here and there TO LIVE
This is how the pump works.
because you love it
heart tissue is created so that it can contract as long as there is access to oxygen, i.e., as long as metabolic processes exist. but it does not beat endlessly. The heart of a living being is designed to beat a certain number of times. after that, the heart tissue dies no matter what. some kind of genetic memory laid like a bomb
Because the tissue of the heart is capable of producing an electrical impulse (the main center is the sinus node, then the second order drivers are the atrioventricular node, and then the bundle of His with two legs), which causes the heart muscle to contract. If interested, google “conduction system of the heart”
The heart is a portal where wave impulses from the Sun and counter reflected impulses from the Earth converge and diverge. These are a kind of energy flows. When impulses are applied, their amplitude changes, pulsates and sets the rhythm of the heart.
Sports, sedentary work, bad habits
What workouts are the safest and healthiest for your cardiovascular system? They say that you can “plant” your heart by doing CrossFit, for example.
– Of course, cardio training. Morning exercises, exercises with cardio equipment (treadmill, exercise bike, elliptical), dosed long-distance running (not just 5 km!), walking (including Nordic walking), swimming, yoga.
You can “plant” your heart by exercising at a clearly excessive pace, without regularity or purpose, having a motley bouquet of untreated diseases, or by any type of physical activity. If you gradually increase the pace under the control of your pulse, well-being, breathing rate, etc., the sad consequences are minimized.
What else seriously harms the heart? They say that sedentary work is very harmful.
– Yes, physical inactivity or a sedentary lifestyle greatly harms the heart and blood vessels. The heart needs to be trained, and after 30 you need to move more than before 30 . Unfortunately, having grown up, we get cars, apartments, stop running to work, don’t go on dates, travel only by elevator and cars, for some reason preferring an all-inclusive holiday in Turkey to hiking in the forests or mountains.
Heart problems are accelerated by diabetes mellitus, high and untreated blood pressure, social smoking and other things, too much work, lack of rest and sleep, unhealthy diet, quick snacks, fast food, runs to McDonald's for a burger and cola, stress, which we don't know how to deal with.
Is it possible to restore the heart after damage? If, for example, I smoked for 15 years and then quit.
– Heart damage is the result of a heart attack or injury. In the first case, we are talking about a scar or an area that falls out of the well-coordinated mechanism of cardiac output. And no, scars do not recover.
Smoking does not cause damage to the heart muscle, it creates a background of areas that receive less or more oxygen and nutrients. As a result, rough connective tissue grows, which supports the function of our “motor”, but does not injure it. The background from smoking may improve, but only after 10–20 years, when the plaques that have grown from impaired cholesterol metabolism have already caused harm.
What should I do now to have fewer heart problems later?
– Remove bad habits and replace them with healthy ones. The habit takes root in 21 days. All bad habits can be replaced with good ones, but not immediately, but gradually, because the body must get used to them. First, we start the day by exercising for 10–15 minutes. As soon as we get used to such stress, we start drinking 1.5 liters of water a day. Then we introduce breathing exercises during the lunch break, etc.
We buy a bicycle and make it the main mode of transport for the country house or evening rides in the park with friends. Of course, you can also use it for work, provided that the journey takes 20–30 minutes, not 3 hours. Everything is within reasonable limits.
Start running, participate in marathons and half marathons. 20–30 minutes 2 times a week after work, in the morning or on weekends. Stop late-night snacking, start getting enough sleep, respect others, treat everyone well, always be in a good mood, be grateful for everything in your life, and contribute calmly to the world.
How to strengthen your heart muscle
- Play sports.
- Diversify your workouts, gradually increase the intensity of the load.
- Get enough sleep.
- Give up bad habits.
- Control your stress levels.
- Follow your cardiologist's recommendations.
- Watch your weight.
- Relax at the resorts.
Food
What should you eat to maintain good heart and blood vessel condition?
– Fruits for breakfast, vegetables for lunch, fish, greens, chicken if you are a meat eater. The method of preparation is important: a minimum of heat treatment, for meat - steamed or baked in the oven.
Avocados, nuts, seeds, porridge (except semolina), baked goods made from whole grain, rice, corn, flaxseed flour, and replacing sugar with Jerusalem artichoke syrup are welcome. And don’t forget about water: 30 ml per kilogram of body weight per day, provided that there are no contraindications for its use, for example, kidney disease, atrial fibrillation.
Age, heredity
If my grandmother and father constantly treat my heart, does this mean that I also have problems?
– This means that there is the same background. Hereditary predisposition is actually a very important factor in similar thoughts, words and actions. But if we radically change our attitude towards life, this background may not appear at all. For example, high blood pressure in a father who lives in stress and eats once a day after 18:00 will not occur in a son who travels the world, does what he loves and lives in joy.
How often do you need to have your heart examined?
– Until the age of 40, if you lead a healthy lifestyle, you do not need to specifically examine your heart. You can do an ultrasound of the heart once every five years, if the doctor initially found no problems during the ultrasound (if there are cardiac complaints), take tests and do a cardiogram once a year .
After 40 years, it is better to completely examine the cardiovascular system once every 2-3 years, especially for men. If changes are detected, undergo examination once a year (atherosclerosis is still not dormant).
Why “especially men”?
– Because men under stress, having risk factors, are more susceptible to heart disease, such as heart attacks.
How does age affect the condition of the heart and blood vessels?
– Until the age of 40, age has almost no effect on the heart. After 40, both men and women can have problems. For the former, it is because it is believed that a man lives under more stress and his reserve capabilities of the heart and blood vessels fail faster. In addition, men are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol, and eat fast food on the go. And this plus three more risk factors. For the second - from sleepless nights and an abundance of work. Even though up to 50 years of age, women are protected from heart and vascular diseases by sex hormones.
If I had heart problems as a child, will I always have them?
– “Problems” with the heart in childhood are mostly associated with the characteristics of a growing organism: hormonal changes, childhood grievances, crying, etc. You can't call them gross changes. Children usually outgrow them. Inflammation of the heart muscle, heart defects and some types of rhythm disturbances progress into adulthood.
Is it true that all overweight people will eventually develop heart problems?
- Yes, that's actually true. Only this is not a consequence of the fact that a person is overweight, but a consequence of the fact that in addition to excess weight there are other risk factors. After all, a person most often gets fat from poor nutrition and low physical activity. And if you are overweight, it means there is a disorder in cholesterol metabolism, the pancreas works under load, increasing the risk of developing diabetes.
Excess weight is one of the factors causing heart disease. One, but not the main one.
What types of muscles are there in the body?
- Skeletal. Consist of cross-striped fabric. Their work can be controlled consciously. These muscles are responsible for maintaining balance and motor activity. They can work very intensely, contract sharply and relax. Skeletal muscles get tired quickly and need to be restored. Their size can grow due to an increase in muscle fibers.
- Smooth. The walls of internal organs, blood vessels, and glands consist of them. This type of muscle also works continuously throughout your life. Their reduction cannot be controlled consciously. An example is intestinal peristalsis.
- Cardiac or myocardium. The most unique type of muscle tissue. It combines the properties of skeletal and smooth muscles. The myocardium is able to work very intensively and almost never get tired. Cardiac muscle fibers, like skeletal muscle fibers, can also enlarge, but this is abnormal and dangerous.
Other diseases
What symptoms should you immediately see a doctor for?
– Reason to see a doctor – obsessive daily squeezing, pressing, stabbing pain in the chest, headaches, severe fatigue at the end of the working day, dizziness, short-term speech impairment, severe weakness in the arms and legs on one side, sudden shortness of breath at night, pain in the abdomen, which causes cold sticky sweat and loss of consciousness.
What diseases of other organs can affect the heart and blood vessels?
– The heart is usually affected by malfunctions of neighboring organs. The thyroid gland is most affected (inflammation, nodes in it, removal of this organ).
The lungs are also nearby, but they rarely affect the heart: only with severe pneumonia or prolonged bronchitis can microbes enter the heart muscle and cause its inflammation - myocarditis.
Problems with cerebral vessels indicate, rather, the systemic nature of vascular damage. Therefore, it cannot be said that the heart became ill because of plaques in the vessels of the neck, because they can also be in the vessels of the heart or legs.
The kidneys are closely related to the heart because they trigger the mechanism for increasing blood pressure. Or hormone-producing tumors in any organs that rearrange the hormonal levels in the body.
