Atrial fibrillation, often called AFib, is a common heart rhythm disorder where the upper chambers of the heart (the atria) beat irregularly and often rapidly. This causes the heart to lose its normal rhythm and can lead to various symptoms that affect how you feel day-to-day.
One of the most noticeable signs of AFib is **heart palpitations**. This means you might feel your heart pounding, fluttering, or racing in an unusual way. Sometimes it feels like your heart is flip-flopping or skipping beats. These sensations can happen suddenly and may last for minutes, hours, or even longer before settling back to normal.
Alongside palpitations, many people experience **chest discomfort or pain** during episodes of AFib. The pain might be sharp or feel like tightness in your chest; sometimes it’s mistaken for indigestion or heartburn because it can come and go unpredictably.
Another common symptom is **shortness of breath**, which means you may find it harder than usual to breathe deeply during everyday activities like walking or climbing stairs—or even when resting. This happens because when your heart beats irregularly and fast, it doesn’t pump blood efficiently enough to meet your body’s oxygen needs.
You might also notice feeling unusually **tired or weak**, even if you haven’t done much physically demanding activity. Fatigue with AFib occurs because the inefficient heartbeat reduces blood flow throughout your body, leaving muscles and organs starved for oxygen-rich blood.
Some people report feeling **dizzy or lightheaded**, which can sometimes progress to fainting spells if the irregular heartbeat severely affects blood circulation to the brain. These dizzy spells may seem random but are important warning signs that something isn’t right with how your heart is working.
Other less obvious symptoms include:
– Feeling anxious without a clear reason
– Excessive sweating during episodes
– A general sense of unease
It’s important to know that not everyone with AFib experiences all these symptoms; some have very mild signs while others have severe ones that disrupt daily life significantly. In fact, some people don’t notice any symptoms at all until their condition is discovered during a routine medical checkup.
AFib symptoms can be constant (persistent) or come and go (paroxysmal). When they come on suddenly but then stop on their own after minutes to days, this intermittent pattern makes diagnosis tricky since symptoms aren’t always present when seeing a doctor.
Women and older adults often have subtler signs such as just feeling tired without obvious palpitations—this sometimes delays diagnosis because these feelings are easily attributed to aging or other health issues rather than an abnormal heartbeat.
If you experience any combination of these signs—especially sudden fluttering in your chest accompanied by dizziness, shortness of breath, fatigue beyond what seems normal for you—it’s crucial to seek medical evaluation promptly since untreated atrial fibrillation increases risks like stroke due to potential blood clots forming in the poorly contracting atria.
In summary: watch out for unusual sensations in your chest such as fluttering/pounding hearts beats; unexplained tiredness; difficulty breathing; dizziness/lightheadedness; chest pain; sweating; anxiety—and remember these may appear intermittently making them easy to overlook but they signal an underlying problem with how well your heart pumps blood through its chambers.
