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Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP000060A
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00:16 I once saw a video of a man who hooked up a sound
00:20 system that amplified the beating of his heart. 00:22 Then, he danced to the rhythm. 00:25 That's something we all can do as long as there's rhythm. 00:29 Stay tuned... 00:31 I'm Dr. James Marcum, 00:33 are you interested in discovering the reason why? 00:36 Do you want solutions to your healthcare problem? 00:39 Are you tired of taking medications? 00:42 Well, you're about to be given the "Ultimate Prescription" 00:47 Arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation, supraventricular tachycardia... 00:54 If your doctor has been tossing these words around with you, 00:57 you might want to pay particular attention to today's program. 01:00 We're talking rhythm and your ability to dance 01:03 the dance of life. 01:05 Dr. Marcum, we're addressing questions sent into the 01:07 heartwiseministries.org website today, 01:10 and the first one was simply, "What is arrhythmia?" 01:13 What do we need to know? 01:15 Well Charles, an arrhythmia means an abnormal heart beat. 01:20 So any time I want to classify something as abnormal, 01:25 I can call it an arrhythmia. 01:27 That would account the abnormal rhythms that comes from the 01:30 top part of the heart, that would come from the 01:33 abnormal rhythms that come from the 01:34 bottom part of the heart that would include a heart 01:38 that's going too slow. 01:39 That would even include a heart that skips. 01:42 All of those we could classify as an arrhythmia. 01:45 What as a normal rhythm of the heart, 01:48 we call that "normal sinus rhythm." 01:51 So I found in your introduction very interesting how 01:54 a person could hear his own heart. 01:57 And, you know, I brought this, a lot of people... 02:00 we used to use these a lot, Charles. 02:02 I'm going to let you hold this for a second. 02:04 Do you know what that is? 02:05 Don't you use that for tuning the piano or something. 02:07 Yes, well not tuning the piano but what we'd use is this sound 02:10 that's exactly what we'd use it for... 02:12 We use it to test people's hearing. Okay 02:15 For we would put it here and put it up next to your ear. 02:18 Now you have to sit back, sit back and relax Charles. 02:21 So I'd hit it here. I hear that. No, no, I know it. 02:24 Do you still hear it? Yep, yep. 02:26 Does it seem to sound about the same here? 02:29 Yes it does... We can do that and we can 02:30 also put it up behind your ear. 02:33 Do you feel that vibrating there? I do, I do 02:35 And then I put it behind the other ear, 02:37 and if you felt that vibrating, then you would know 02:40 that your neurology part of that part of the body, 02:43 the hearing part, is in pretty good shape. Okay? 02:47 Now what does that have to do with rhythms? 02:50 Can you hear your rhythm? Can you feel your rhythm? 02:53 Well, you know, a lot of songs have rhythms to it. 02:58 Hearing, sounds, rhythms, rhythms of the heart, 03:03 I think it all sort of goes together. 03:05 The heart singing a song when it's in rhythm, 03:08 and when it's in rhythm everything works together. 03:10 When it's out of rhythm, things don't work good. 03:13 When the top is going too fast, it beats like that... 03:16 When the bottom is going too fast, 03:18 it can't generate a blood pressure. 03:20 So the rhythms of life just like we want to hear these 03:23 good rhythms coming from our 03:24 heart, because it affects everything... 03:26 So just like a tuning fork, you want to hear 03:29 the things coming from that to know you have good hearing. 03:31 So the rhythm of your heart is basically a heart in tune, 03:34 a heart that is okay, gotcha. 03:37 It's running good, everything is working good, 03:40 and it comes from - just like this is part of our 03:43 neurologic system; the rhythms of the heart 03:45 has some neurological properties as well to that, 03:48 and the signals move down these little wires. 03:51 It's very interesting how God made it; depends on how 03:53 sodium and potassium and magnesium move in and out of 03:57 cells - it can have genetic abnormalities; 04:00 it could have abnormalities that we cause it to have as well. 04:03 So understanding rhythms of the heart is something 04:06 very important because almost all people at some point 04:09 has felt their heart not do what's right. Yes 04:11 They felt it skip or go too fast or... 04:13 how do I know what to worry about? 04:15 When is it dangerous? 04:16 When should I seek medical attention? 04:18 These are all things that we want to talk about. 04:20 I've noticed that sometimes when I'm taking a medication 04:24 my heart will do that. 04:26 It's kind of scary because you realize you have one heart, 04:29 and you are depending on that one heart to get you 04:32 through life and if that one heart starts acting up, 04:35 it kind of frightens you and I guess probably the fear 04:39 of that is not good for the heart, 04:41 and so there becomes a cycle that begins to develop there. 04:44 There is this arrhythmia and that scares me which causes 04:47 more arrhythmia which scares me... there you go! 04:49 Right, it can self-perpetuate so you feel a skipped 04:53 heartbeat and then you get more scared and your body 04:55 makes more adrenalin and the adrenalin stimulates 04:58 another heartbeat to skip. 04:59 And sometimes the heart rhythms are in there genetically 05:03 and, I like to say, they're asleep. 05:05 You know, they're just sleeping there. 05:06 Even though your genes for that rhythm might 05:08 be there, they're asleep. 05:09 They have lots of blankets on that rhythm, 05:11 they're sleeping nice and then sometimes, in our lives, 05:14 we do things that take the cover off and we actually 05:16 wake those rhythms up. 05:18 What are things that wake up abnormal rhythms? 05:20 Low on potassium, lots of fear can cause skips, 05:25 having thyroid abnormalities, having lots of pain in the body. 05:29 Basically anything that causes stress that we've talked about 05:33 can stimulate the heart to skip - to mess up the rhythms, 05:37 these naturally rhythms of our heart that we want to have, 05:39 it can cause the stress and it can cause it to skip 05:43 and it can wake up genetically abnormal rhythms as well. 05:45 Is there any time that arrhythmia 05:47 is actually a good thing? 05:48 Well, there's a normal rhythm, like I say, if you have an 05:51 infection and the heart needs to pump more blood, 05:53 it can speed up naturally and that's a natural speeding up. 05:57 Because if you're sitting there quietly, 05:58 but you have an infection, your heart rate may go up... Yes 06:01 because of xxxxx xxxxxxx infection... Pump more blood... uh huh 06:02 If you're scared and need to run, 06:04 you know, you're fighting a battle, 06:06 you know, let's say me and you have little tussle 06:09 later on in the show... Never! 06:10 And we start and you know, then your heart would speed up 06:13 so you could defend yourself. 06:15 You're gonna hit me? No, no I'm not... 06:17 But that's a normal stress response, 06:20 and a normal stress response is good. 06:22 An abnormal stress response is not good. Oh okay 06:25 So an arrhythmia is any slow heartbeat, fast heartbeat, 06:29 skip heartbeat that's not normal, we can lump that 06:32 into this term called, "an arrhythmia." 06:35 All right, very good, we're looking at questions 06:37 from heartwiseministries.org on the rhythm of the heart 06:41 and here is another one... 06:42 What are some of the symptoms 06:45 of an abnormal electrical system. 06:49 We have an electrical system... Yes 06:50 And that electrical system really is 06:52 where the rhythm comes from. Okay 06:53 And on the top we have a battery called the "sinoatrial node," 06:58 and then it travels down to wires called the "AV node," 07:01 and then there's a delay and it goes out through wires 07:04 to the ventricle and then when the signal gets there 07:06 the heart squeezes. 07:07 This is in the heart - all in the heart, 07:09 all these electrical signals. 07:10 So that's really what we call the "electrical system." 07:12 It's how the signals pass that generates 07:15 the squeezing of the heart. 07:17 We can measure that on EKGs, 07:19 we can measure it on monitors, there's lots of ways 07:22 we could measure it, but this person asked about 07:25 symptoms. Yes 07:26 Well, let's be logical about it. 07:28 If a heart is pumping too slow, we're not getting enough 07:33 blood to the body and if we're not getting enough blood 07:36 to the body, we might feel tired; 07:39 we might feel fatigued. 07:41 If we don't get enough blood to the brain, 07:43 we might pass out or get dizzy. 07:47 When we do something, our heart might not 07:49 speed up fast enough, so we might get short of breath. 07:53 Those are all very common symptoms of slow heart rhythms. 07:57 The heart is going too slow and it won't speed up. 08:00 Fast heart rhythms - okay, if it's going fast, 08:03 usually people can feel it going fast. 08:05 They get short of breath because the heart can't pump blood 08:08 as efficiently. 08:09 Sometimes their blood pressure goes down, 08:11 they get tired and dizzy. 08:14 Sometimes they even feel like their heart is jumping out of 08:17 them and they have chest pain when it's going so fast. 08:19 It can feel like a normal thumping. 08:22 So, those are all some feelings that the electrical system 08:25 might not be well... a feeling of going fast, 08:28 getting dizzy, passing out, unusually tired, 08:31 unusually short of breath... all of these could be 08:34 signs that the electrical system is malfunctioning. 08:37 Can you fix the electrical system? 08:39 Well you can help the electrical system, 08:41 and it's like anything that we've talked about 08:43 over and over... if you can find out what's 08:45 causing the problem, then you're going to be 08:47 successful in treating it. 08:49 For instance, if a stimulant is causing the heart to go out of 08:52 rhythm or go too fast... 08:54 Like coffee, caffeine... Yeah! 08:56 ... then let's get rid of that. Okay, okay 08:57 You know, if a thyroid is underactive, 08:59 sometimes the heart can go too slow. 09:02 Sometimes medicines can make the heart go too slow. 09:06 But most of the time, when the heart is going 09:08 too slow, it's because the conduction system, 09:11 these wires have gradually gotten old, 09:13 they're sort of worn out or the batters are worn out, 09:16 and there's not much we can do about that 09:18 except give them a device called a "pacemaker." Yeah 09:22 Now, when the heart goes too fast, there could be things 09:25 that wake that rhythm up, but then sometimes 09:28 these rhythms are genetically there. 09:30 We can destroy those. 09:32 The most frequent rhythms that I see in the office 09:34 includes "atrial fibrillation." 09:36 That's where the top part goes faster than the bottom part. 09:40 We see that on many different types of conditions. 09:42 And the other one we see frequently is "skipped beats." 09:46 People say, "My heart is skipping, I feel a thump, 09:49 and then nothing happens." 09:50 And for that type of rhythm, we try to find out, 09:52 "Well, what is stimulating that extra beat, 09:55 what is the stressor that's causing that to happen?" 09:57 And frequently, it might be something as simple as 09:59 caffeine. 10:01 I see it a lot in people that don't get enough rest. 10:03 They get sleep apnea, that happens! 10:05 That's another cause of arrhythmia. 10:06 You don't get enough blood, it puts stress of the system, 10:08 the heart can start beating abnormally. 10:10 So these are sort of our approach, 10:12 but those are sort of the symptoms that comes 10:15 when you have an abnormal 10:16 electrical system. All right, very good. 10:18 Another question from heartwiseministries.org 10:21 Is atrial fibrillation the same as supraventricular tachycardia? 10:27 Yeah, and that is a very important question, Charles, 10:30 and it's a great question because they can almost feel 10:34 the same, but the treatments are vastly different. 10:37 Atrial fibrillation, remember we talked about that's 10:40 where the heart, the top, is just beating randomly, 10:42 it can't get the blood to the bottom very good, 10:45 it feels about the same as this other one called, 10:47 "supraventricular tachycardia." 10:49 Supraventricular tachycardia is a rhythm that usually 10:52 comes from one spot where the heartbeats regular, 10:55 but it goes very, very fast, so it feels the same. 10:58 Now how would we tell what rhythm it is - usually is 11:01 with the monitor or an EKG, then we could see the beats 11:04 on the heart and say, "Well that's atrial fibrillation, 11:07 or that's supraventricular tachycardia." 11:09 Supraventricular tachycardia we can get that sometimes 11:13 to go away just by doing maneuvers that stimulate 11:16 the part of our body called, "the vagal nervous system." 11:20 If you had SVT and rubbed your neck real slowly, 11:22 that could break that rhythm, or if you bared down 11:25 like you had to go to the bathroom, that could turn 11:27 off that arrhythmia. 11:29 And if we can't turn it off, that's one rhythm that seems 11:32 to be a genetic rhythm that we can actually go up 11:34 and we can see where that small pathway is and we can 11:37 destroy that so that person doesn't have 11:39 to have that ever again. 11:41 Whereas atrial fibrillation, we have to look at all 11:44 the different causes of atrial fibrillation 11:46 including high blood pressure, sleep apnea, thyroid disease, 11:50 heart disease, valve disease, many things can cause it, 11:53 and treatment would be to try to get it back in rhythm 11:56 or at least to slow it down and consider a blood thinner, 11:59 because if it's out of rhythm all the time, 12:02 there's a chance that it could form a stroke. 12:04 In fact, it's estimated that 1 in every 3 strokes is from 12:07 atrial fibrillation where they are not taking a blood thinner. 12:11 So it's scary - did that answer that question? It did 12:13 I think so and... It's not the same, 12:15 these aren't the same rhythms, we have to differentiate 12:17 because the treatments are so different. 12:18 How do you know... this person wants to know, 12:21 "How do I know if I need a pacemaker?" 12:22 I mean, if these things are happening, 12:24 the rhythms are being weird, 12:25 is it time for a pacemaker automatically? 12:27 Well let me answer that question by you about a patient 12:30 of mine... I had a patient that came in the other day, 12:32 and he said, "You know what, I'm tired a lot." 12:35 "Okay, I'm just tired." 12:36 And the first thing I said, "Well, are you dizzy?" 12:39 He said, "Yeah sometimes I get a little dizzy when I'm doing 12:42 things and when I do things, I get short of breath 12:44 real quickly." 12:45 So I said, "Well there are quite a few 12:47 heart things that can do that," and I looked at his EKG 12:49 and it was going 38 beats per minute. 12:52 Okay, well that's okay if it's speeds up when you're doing it. 12:55 I said, "Well let's send you home on a monitor." 12:58 So he wore that monitor and I noticed that he was 13:01 having slow heart rate all the time, even when he did things, 13:04 and sometimes in the middle of the night... 13:06 No wonder he was tired. Yeah 13:07 Sometimes in the middle of the night, it went down to 20. 13:10 So his heart wasn't going fast enough to supply the 13:12 blood supply and the oxygen that every tissue needed. 13:16 So, in this gentleman, his conduction system 13:19 had gradually gotten older, things just don't 13:21 work as well and he was a candidate for a pacemaker. 13:25 So he received a pacemaker and guess what? 13:27 His symptoms have now improved dramatically. 13:29 So now he can do things and he doesn't get tired. 13:32 His blood pressure is not quite as perfect 13:34 as your normal rhythm, but it's a dramatic 13:36 improvement - you know, he went from about a 35 to 70, 13:40 so increased his cardiac output by 100%. 13:43 So you get more blood around to all your organs, 13:46 you're going to feel a lot better than if it's 13:47 going slow all the time. 13:49 And nothing he could eat or no amount of exercise 13:51 or type of exercise would have altered that at all. 13:53 Not for him, no. In fact, sometimes the parts 13:58 wear out and need to be replaced, 13:59 and that was the case with him. We live in a world of sin. 14:02 The part just got old, but luckily, this is something 14:04 that we could do for him because if we couldn't do it, 14:06 eventually he'd fall down and hurt himself, 14:08 or eventually his heart would just stop 14:10 and he would pass away. 14:12 You know, what's hard though Charles, is occasionally 14:14 people get very old and we have to put a pacemaker. 14:18 That's a much harder decision. All right, very good. 14:20 We'll have more good questions 14:22 from heartwiseministries.org and a Bible text for you, 14:25 so stay right where you are. |
Revised 2016-02-09