{"id":2161,"date":"2018-06-13T05:14:27","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T05:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/besthealth.guide\/?p=2161"},"modified":"2021-10-12T01:15:37","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T01:15:37","slug":"10-symptoms-of-long-qt-syndrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/besthealth.guide\/10-symptoms-of-long-qt-syndrome\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Symptoms of Long QT Syndrome"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Your heart beats around sixty to ninety times per minute when you are resting, and over a hundred times per minute when you are performing a physical exercise and\/or are subject to a state of anxiety on excitement. It has a complex electrical mechanism that keeps it beating at the right place, and its many parts and circuits are coordinated thanks to an imbricated system of nervous connections and regulation from your autonomous nervous system.<\/p>\n

However, just like all things, this system can fail. There are many ways in which your heartbeat can be disturbed and many more causes behind them. Today we will examine the Long QT Syndrome, one of the most common causes of heart arrhythmia. Long QT syndrome is difficult to diagnose and requires heart testing, but you can detect its symptoms and consult your doctor if you suspect you have it. Long QT syndrome is treatable but it requires proper diagnosis.<\/p>\n

1. Arrhythmia<\/h3>\n

Your heart has a very specific pattern of beats, which corresponds to a cycle of electric signals that travel through your cardiac muscle over and over again. These signs are originated in your brain stem and are influenced by factors such as adrenalin. Your heart will often beat at a regular pace, and the changes in heart rate will often be progressive. Arrhythmia happens when your heart loses its pace and the electric signs that reach your cardiac muscles are insufficient to keep your beat steady, or even are unsteady themselves.<\/p>\n

Long QT syndrome alters the pace at which your heartbeats and these disturbances can be clearly seen on an electrocardiogram study (ECG). In some cases, the arrhythmia<\/a> is so slight that it is impossible to detect unless you have an ECG performed on yourself, but in others, it can be so severe that you can perceive your pulse being erratic and out of control.\"\"<\/p>\n

2. Palpitations<\/h3>\n

When you have a Long QT syndrome, your heart beats at an irregular pace because the electrical waves that run through it are not coordinated and therefore the cardiac muscle loses efficiency and effectivity. Your heart will not only beat at an irregular pace but also have trouble pumping the blood through your body. The lower half of your heart, which is the part that pumps the blood back to the arteries, takes a bit too long to respond with every beat, so your blood stays inside your heart for longer each time.<\/p>\n

This disturbs the way your heart functions and disrupts the cycle of beats. People with Long QT syndrome can experience palpitations<\/a> as a symptom, as their heart struggles to pump the blood. The palpitations are often felt on the chest, though there are other sections of the body where arteries are closer to the surface and therefore the palpitations can be felt, including the neck and throat.\"\"<\/p>\n

3. Skipped beats<\/h3>\n

Skipped beats might be one of the light symptoms of Long QT syndrome people get more worried about because even if in themselves they are not dangerous or any sign of a serious problem going on, our instinct can tell us that they mean there is something wrong with our heart. Skipped beats are often experienced along with arrhythmia because technically they are an alteration in our heart rate<\/a>. From the patient\u2019s point of view, skipped beats are experienced as a brief suspension of the beating of the heart.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the heart does skip a beat, but in most cases, it just waits for too long between two beats, so it seems that the next beat has been skipped in its entirety. Long QT syndrome causes the heart to take too long from one beat to the next, so it isn\u2019t uncommon to observe skipped beats in people with this syndrome.\"\"<\/p>\n

4. Fainting<\/h3>\n

Some organs in our body are more sensitive than others to a deficient supply of blood. Blood is necessary for all organs and tissues, but some of them can last for longer without enough irrigation. One of the organs in our body which is most sensitive to an insufficient supply of blood is our brain. Our brain burns many calories and requires a constant input of nutrients and other chemicals<\/a> in order to function, and if the brain starts to fail because it doesn\u2019t get the input that it needs in real-time, all the other organs and tissues will suffer because the brain commands them all.<\/p>\n

A disturbed heart rate can impact the amount of blood that goes up to our head, and if the input is deficient our brain will go into an energy-saving mode in order to protect our basic functions. For that reason, people with Long QT syndrome might faint.\"\"<\/p>\n

5. Seizures<\/h3>\n

The consequences of poor oxygenation can be very bad for our brain. Our neurons<\/a> and other brain cells burn glucose in order to work, and the glucose is provided by the constant flow of blood that goes up to our brain through the carotids and the basal artery.<\/p>\n

The irrigation system in our brain is designed to prevent blood shortage as much as possible, but with a disturbed heartbeat such as what happens with the Long QT syndrome, sometimes it is not enough and our neurons suffer because of it.<\/p>\n

The most common consequence of a poor blood supply aside from fainting is seizures, which are a massive malfunction of the synapsis that connect one neuron and the next. Without the proper blood input, our neuronal activity can go out of control and induce massive discharges of neurotransmission and electrolytes that activate our brain cells and cause seizures.\"\"<\/p>\n

6. Sudden death<\/h3>\n

This is one of the most terrifying symptoms of Long QT syndrome. The good news is if treated instantly, death caused by Long QT syndrome can be reverted and the patient can come back to life; however, if they don\u2019t get proper attention immediately, this could be the end of the person\u2019s life for good. Death happens when the rate of the heart is so disrupted that the heart chambers fail to respond to an electrical impulse, so the heart contracts chaotically without pumping the blood out.<\/p>\n

The heart gets filled with blood that doesn\u2019t come out of it and the cardiac muscle cannot push it out. Eventually, the heart movement enters a state called fibrillation, where there is electrical activity but no effective heartbeat. The heart can be restarted by a sudden shock of electricity provided by a heart defibrillator, as long as only a few minutes have passed and the damage of the lack of blood circulation<\/a> is not too severe.\"\"<\/p>\n

7. Syncope<\/h3>\n

Syncope is among the most dangerous symptoms of Long QT syndrome, not because it is dangerous in itself to the body, but because it can cause accidents or injury at any time of the day, and they cannot be predicted. Syncope is a sudden loss of consciousness<\/a> without any previous warning or any symptom preceding the fainting. It is caused by a sudden drop in blood supply to the brain, due to an inefficient electrical pattern in the heart.<\/p>\n

A syncope is known among the population as a \u201cfaint spell\u201d because it happens out of nowhere as if somebody was just struck by an enchantment. Even if there are no signs indicating that you will have a syncope, there are situations in which you are more likely to have one, so it is better to try and avoid them if you know you have Long QT syndrome. Those include exercising and sudden bursts of emotion.\"\"<\/p>\n

8. Anxiety<\/h3>\n

This is a secondary symptom, mostly caused by the recurrence and repetition of other direct symptoms of the Long QT syndrome, and in some cases, it can require separate medical attention. However, in most cases, proper treatment of the Long QT syndrome itself will be enough to relieve the symptoms of anxiety and therefore improve the quality of life of the patient. The most common symptoms of Long QT syndrome can cause anxiety because of a natural system of feedback in our nervous system,<\/a> which tells us we are nervous every time we feel palpitations or skip beats.<\/p>\n

The fear of an erratic heart rate, unexpected fainting at any time, and even seizures, can also cause some of the anxious manifestations of this syndrome in the psychological sphere. When Long QT syndrome is treated with the proper medication, anxiety can decrease and even disappear, because the patient will feel safer and they will know that they are less likely to experience these symptoms.\"\"<\/p>\n

9. Deafness<\/h3>\n

Some forms of long term Long QT syndrome are associated with deafness<\/a>. There are many causes of Long QT syndrome, and some of them are transitory; for example, certain medications can trigger a Long QT syndrome, which will disappear as soon as the person quits the medication. However, other forms of Long QT syndrome are life long, and they start at the very beginning of life.<\/p>\n

One of these chronic Long QT syndrome forms is the Jervell and Lange-Nielsen syndrome, which affects unborn babies and then lasts for the rest of their lives. People with Jervell and Lange-Nielsen syndrome are born deaf, due to the genetic alterations that are characteristic of this syndrome. Acquired deafness is not linked to a Long QT syndrome, so if you have it but can hear you are not at risk of losing your hearing at a later age more than people who don\u2019t have the syndrome.\"\"<\/p>\n

10. Sudden infant death syndrome<\/h3>\n

The sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is one of the most feared events in a baby\u2019s early life, and so far, there is no established cause for it people in the scientific community can agree about. There are many hypotheses and risk factors that have been linked to sudden infant<\/a> death syndrome, but the general idea is that there are many causes and risk factors for the syndrome, and so far, there is no way to prevent it.<\/p>\n

Research shows that up to 10% of babies that have a sudden infant death present signs of a Long QT syndrome. Further research is needed in order to understand the causal relationship between the Long QT syndrome and sudden infant death syndrome, but there is a high chance that the Long QT syndrome increases the baby\u2019s chances to experience heart fibrillation, or ventricular fibrillation, which can cause the heart to stop altogether.\r\n

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