Your Heart Beat Will Tell when To Go To The Hospital
The key for treating or managing heart failure is taking your medication, changing your diet, exercising regularly and actively, living a healthy lifestyle, monitoring and maintaining your health for new signs or symptoms of worsening heart failure symptoms. A doctor will tell you how often you should visit the hospital.
If you have any of the symptoms described in this article, do not wait for the next appointment to notify a doctor. If your symptoms are recognized early, your doctor can change medications to help relieve your symptoms. (Don’t change or stop taking medicine without talking to a doctor.)
It is Important: Do not wait until your symptoms are so severe that you should seek emergency treatment! Always keep the following information near your mobile for easy access:
- Your cardiologist doctor’s phone number
- Your current medication list and dosage
- Mention all the allergies you have
Heart rate can vary from person to person, but what is considered normal? And when is a heartbeat considered dangerous? Read this article to find out more provided by cardiologist doctors from Premier Hospital.
If you are not medically trained, it will likely be difficult for you to understand what is happening in your body, and it is even more challenging to ensure that your heart is functioning correctly. You can take your pulse and learn what heartbeat says about the health, and when to go to the hospital to speak with a cardiologist if you have any concerns about your heart health by finding a heartbeat.
What Is A Normal Heart Rate?
When we talk about your heart rate, then it refers to your resting heart rate — medically defined as the lowest amount of blood you need when you are not exercising or doing any activities. Your resting heart rate is the rate at which your heart pumps the minimum amount of blood you need for daily activities.
The standard resting heart rate for adults, including adults and people over ten years, is between 60 and 100 beats per minute (BPM). It is usual for the heart rate to slow in childhood to adolescence. To elaborate, this is a standard limit value for heart rate based on age.
- 70 – 190 bpm: Newborns below one month
- 80 – 169 bpm: Between the age of 1 – 11 months
- 80 – 130 bpm: Age 1 – 2
- 80 – 120 bpm: Age 3 – 4
- 75 – 115 bpm: Age 5 – 6
- 70 – 110 bpm: Age 7 – 9 years
- 60 – 90 bpm: Age 10 – 18
- 55 – 80 bpm: Age 18 and above
In trained athletes, their heart rates can average between 40 and 60 beats per minute.
Many factors affect resting heart rate. Genes play a role. Ageing tends to speed it up, while regular exercise tends to slow it down. Stress, medication, and disease also affect the heart rate.
We can have standard heart rates healthily with changes in body conditions, including body temperature, exercise, and emotions such as anxiety and agitation.
Calculating Resting Heart Rate:
To get started, do the following to measure your heart rate:
- Place your index finger and middle finger on your neck beside your windpipe or, you can place two fingers between the bones and tendons above your radial artery, which is located on the side of the thumb of the wrist.
- When you feel your heartbeat, count the number of beats per 15 seconds. Double this number by 4 to count the number of beats per minute.
To avoid miscalculating your heart rate, we advise you not to measure your heart rate within 1-2 hours after exercise or after a stressful event. Your heart can stay high after strenuous activity. You also have to wait at least an hour after consuming caffeine, because this can make your heartbeat and your heart rate increases.
Does your resting heart rate not within the normal range given above, then this always indicate a medical condition?
When The Heartbeat Is Irregular?
Medically known as arrhythmia, this is when your heart rhythm is abnormal. It does not mean that your heart beats too fast or too slow; it just means that your heart is not in a regular rhythm.
The heart usually beats at regular and synchronized times with an internal electrical circuit called pacemaker that controls the rhythm. Abnormalities in this chain can cause fast, slow or irregular heart rhythms.
Arrhythmia can be urgent or not dangerous at all. Irregular heartbeats can occur even if your heart is healthy. That can happen because of:
- Changes in your heart muscle or heart structure
- Heart attack Injury
- The healing process after heart surgery
- Heart disease
- Electrolytes Imbalance (such as sodium or potassium) in blood
When Heart Beats Too Fast:
Doctors call it tachycardia when your heart beats very fast for reasons other than exercise, fever, or stress. For most people, the heart still usually functions to pump blood throughout the body.
During episodes of tachycardia, the heart beats at least 100 beats per minute and can reach 300 beats per minute. This episode can begin and end quickly, and you may not even notice symptoms. This condition only becomes a problem if it occurs frequently, lasts too long, or causes symptoms such as a throbbing heartbeat, dizziness, shortness of breath, convulsions, chest pain, or tension.
If you notice that your resting heart rate is increasing, this is a sign to see it. A fast resting heart rate can indicate the onset and progression of heart disease.
When Heart Beats Too Slowly:
On the other hand, when your heart beats slowly while at rest, doctors call it bradycardia. For most people, heart rate is 60-100 beats per minute, whereas the rest is standard. If your heart beats less than 60 times a minute, it will be slower than usual.
A slow heart rate does not cause problems for some people. It can be a sign that you are very fit. In others, bradycardia is a sign of a heart problem where the heart may not pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs. Some symptoms include dizziness, convulsions, shortness of breath or increased difficulty in exercising, fatigue, chest pain or palpitations in the chest.
Bradycardia can be caused by changes in the heart due to ageing, heart disease (e.g. coronary heart disease, heart attacks), low thyroid levels, or by taking drugs to treat heart problems or high blood pressure.
Crossing Heart Beat Into Danger Zone Then Visit The Hospital?
We now know that a heartbeat that is too fast or too slow may or may not have a severe problem. Then how do you determine when your heart rate enters the danger zone?
Depending on your age, a human heart can usually beat up to 220 times per minute, and small children can only reach this maximum. If you want to set a maximum heart rate, subtract your age from 220. You will find that your maximum heart rate decreases with age.
It is difficult to determine when your heart rhythm enters the danger zone. However, if you notice unusual events in your heart’s activity, or if you develop the symptoms described above, contact a doctor for a heart examination or treatment at an early stage.
Conclusion:
Heart rate can vary from person to person and can be influenced by various factors. For all of the adults, the standard resting heart rate is between 60 and 100 beats per minute.
Both tachycardia and bradycardia can be indicators of other health conditions. If left untreated, they can cause potentially serious health complications. So, if you think that your heartbeat is irregular than visit the hospital immediately.
If you have persistently high or low heart rate, then make an appointment with a cardiologist doctor at Premier Hospital contact us at 77020 01163 where we provide you with the best doctors for examination and treatment.
About The Doctor:
Dr. K Chanakya Kishore – Interventional Cardiologist
Dr. K Chanakya Kishore practices as a Sr. Interventional Cardiologist, at Premier Hospitals, Hyderabad. He did his MBBS & MD in Kurnool Medical College and D.M in Cardiology from the prestigious All India Institute Of Medical Sciences New Delhi. He is also conferred with FACC in 2017 and FSCA1 in 2019.
He is one of the leading interventional cardiologists in Hyderabad with an immense 17+years of experience in the field. He has performed more than 25,000 procedures and 3000+ PTCAs. He is Expertise in trans-radial and trans ulnar PTCA’s.
About Premier Hospital:
Since the inception of Premier Hospital in 1991 till today, we have grown to unprecedented levels, due to our excellence in medical sciences and healthcare. Premier Hospital is the creation of Dr. Mahesh Marda and when it was first established, was only a small, 30-bed hospital facility. Back then, we provided only secondary care to patients, but that certainly has changed in the present landscape.
