Have you ever felt your heart lurch, flutter, or skip a few beats? That’s an arrhythmia. Arrhythmias aren’t usually a cause for concern but can indicate an underlying heart health issue.
The best way to know is to monitor your heart with a Holter, event, or telemetry monitor.
Here, Dr. Fahmi Farah and our team at Bentley Heart in Fort Worth, Texas, explain how each works so you can understand what to expect from the cardiac monitoring process.
Any heart problem is unsettling, so we want to ensure our patients are fully informed when we give them a diagnosis. Here’s a closer look at what it means to have an arrhythmia.
An arrhythmia is the scientific term for an abnormal heart rhythm. It occurs when the electrical signals that tell your heart to beat malfunction, causing it to beat too fast (tachycardia), too slow (bradycardia), or prematurely.
Many things can interfere with the electrical signals in your heart, including:
Some experience fluttering, pounding, or racing heartbeats. Fortunately, many arrhythmias are harmless; others warn of serious underlying issues.
You may be able to live life with an arrhythmia without skipping a beat, but if you leave it unchecked, you could be ignoring the first warning signs of something serious.
That’s why we recommend you make an appointment with us as soon as you notice something changes in your heart rhythm. When you arrive, we’ll likely recommend one of the following types of monitors.
Holter monitors are portable Electrocardiograms (EKGs) that continuously record your heart’s electrical activity. When you wear a Holter monitor, we attach electrodes to your chest that connect to the portable ECG device.
The EKG device is small enough to fit in your pocket or wear around your waist. You’ll usually wear your Holter monitor for several days to a few weeks.
We recommend Holter monitors when we suspect an arrhythmia but can’t detect it during an in-office EKG.
Instead of providing continuous feedback on the Holter monitor, event monitors only track your heart’s electrical activity when you activate the device. This type of monitor is best if your arrhythmia symptoms occur occasionally. Typically, we have you use an event monitor for longer (around 30 days).
Nowadays, event monitors connect to apps on your devices, allowing you to store your information safely and Dr. Farah to evaluate your heart’s activity in real time.
This type of cardiac monitoring is usually reserved for those who’ve recently experienced a major cardiac event, such as a heart attack or heart surgery. It’s very similar to the Holter monitor in what it tracks and how it collects data. Still, telemetry monitoring usually occurs over a longer period—we often require a month’s worth of monitoring.
Smartwatches and other devices offer built-in cardiac monitoring functions, which have greatly improved early detection of heart problems. The FDA approves some of these tech tools, but always check in with Dr. Farah before you rely on them to make decisions about your heart health.
If you suspect a change in your heart health, don’t wait another day for an evaluation. Call our friendly staff at 817-720-5185 or use our online booking tool to schedule a consultation today.