Holiday Heart Syndrome, A Simple Guide To The Condition, Diagnosis, Treatment And Related Conditions

by Kenneth Kee

Overview

This book describes Holiday Heart Syndrome, Diagnosis and Treatment and Related Diseases
Holiday Heart Syndrome is a severe medical disorder normally occurring during the holiday season of Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year.
This disorder happens when people over-indulge in taking large quantities of food, alcohol, salt, and caffeine.
The main medical manifestation of Holiday Heart Syndrome is anomaly in the rate and rhythm of the heart
The most often seen arrhythmia is atrial fibrillation, in which the atria (top chambers of the heart) quiver or fibrillate inducing the heart to beat irregularly and often quite fast.
This can make patients feel acutely sick.
If left untreated, this disorder can lead to possible severe complications like stroke or a heart attack.
A more regular arrhythmia, called atrial flutter, or premature beats (extra beats) coming from either the top or bottom chambers may be observed as well.
Holiday Heart Syndrome can also produce considerable injury to the heart and lead to another serious disorder called cardiomyopathy in which there are enlarged heart muscles.
This disorder was most often observed in patients without underlying heart disease
This acute holiday heart syndrome can happen in the situation of a high degree of stress, illness or dehydration
There has been shown a link between excessive alcohol ingestion (binge drinking) and onset of a heart rhythm disturbance
Some arrhythmias linked with holiday heart syndrome after binge drinking can lead to sudden death
Symptoms normally resolve themselves within 24 hours.
Holiday heart syndrome can also produce abnormal burning sensation during urination and the feeling of passing blood just like a kidney stone.
This generally subsides in days or weeks.
Symptoms
The symptoms of holiday heart are linked to an irregular and often fast heart rate.
1.Palpitations (a feeling of pounding in the chest, racing or skipping heart beats),
2.Shortness of breath particularly with exertion,
3.Fatigue,
4.Chest discomfort or pain or
5.Dizziness and feeling faint.
Diagnosis
Normally, if a person has symptoms indicative of Holiday Heart Syndrome then he or she should be brought to the emergency room immediately
A 12-lead electrocardiography is necessary to rule out other cardiac pathology such as:
1.Ischemia,
2.Infarction,
3.Pulmonary embolism, or
4.Hypertrophy.
Echocardiography has become the standard diagnostic method to evaluate:
1.Chamber enlargement,
2.Left ventricular (LV) wall motion abnormalities,
3.Hypertrophy,
4.Valvular disease, and
6.Systolic dysfunction.
Treatment
Once the patient reaches the emergency room then routine ECG monitoring will be done to examine the status of the heart rate.
In some patients treatment with beta blockers may be given for regulating the heart rate in case if the atrial fibrillation persists for more than 24 hours.
In circumstances where beta blockers or other medicines to regulate the heart rate can not be given then cardioversion may be indicated.
In most cases of Holiday heart Syndrome, the patient is admitted into hospital for at least 24 hours for observation and to reduce the heart rate.
Patients who are young and do not have any underlying heart anomalies and are perfectly healthy otherwise can be discharged once their heart rate goes down
The treatment is intravenous diltiazem which regulated the ventricular rate.
The patient may also receive fluids through an IV (a catheter placed into the vein) to re-hydrate the patient.
The taking of alcohol is contraindicated.
If the doctors are worried that the patient may have undiagnosed heart disease, they may admit the patient to the hospital for further evaluation.

TABLE OF CONTENT
Introduction
Chapter 1 Holiday Heart Syndrome
Chapter 2 Causes
Chapter 3 Symptoms
Chapter 4 Diagnosis
Chapter 5 Treatment
Chapter 6 Prognosis
Chapter 7 Atrial Fibrillation
Chapter 8 Coronary Heart Disease
Epilogue

Product Details

BN ID:	2940155217718
Publisher:	Kenneth Kee
Publication date:	04/16/2018
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	118 KB

About the Author

Medical doctor since 1972. Started Kee Clinic in 1974 at 15 Holland Dr #03-102, relocated to 36 Holland Dr #01-10 in 2009. Did my M.Sc (Health Management ) in 1991 and Ph.D (Healthcare Administration) in 1993. Dr Kenneth Kee is still working as a family doctor at the age of 65. However he has reduced his consultation hours to 3 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. He first started writing free blogs on medical conditions seen in the clinic in 2007 on http://kennethkee.blogspot.com. His purpose in writing these simple guides was for the health education of his patients which is also his dissertation for his Ph.D (Healthcare Administration). He then wrote an autobiolographical account of his journey as a medical student to family doctor on his other blog afamilydoctorstale.blogspot.com. This autobiolographical account “A Family Doctor’s Tale” was combined with his early “A Simple Guide to Medical Conditions” into a new Wordpress Blog “A Family Doctor’s Tale” on http://ken-med.com. From which many free articles from the blog was taken and put together into 550 amazon kindle books and some into Smashwords.com eBooks. He apologized for typos and spelling mistakes in his earlier books. He will endeavor to improve the writing in futures. Some people have complained that the simple guides are too simple. For their information they are made simple in order to educate the patients. The later books go into more details of medical conditions. The first chapter of all my ebooks is always taken from my blog A Simple Guide to Medical Conditions which was started in 2007 as a simple educational help to my patients on my first blog http://kennethkee.blogspot.com. The medical condition was described simply and direct to the point. Because the simple guide as taken from the blog was described as too simple, I have increased the other chapters to include more detailed description of the illness, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment. As a result there are the complaints by some readers of constant repetitions of the same contents but in detail and fairly up to date. He has published 550 eBooks on various subjects on health, 1 autobiography of his medical journey, another on the autobiography of a Cancer survivor, 2 children stories and one how to study for his nephew and grand-daughter. The purpose of these simple guides is to educate patient on health conditions and not meant as textbooks. He does not do any night duty since 2000 ever since Dr Tan had his second stroke. His clinic is now relocated to the Bouna Vista Community Centre. The 2 units of his original clinic are being demolished to make way for a new Shopping Mall. He is now doing some blogging and internet surfing (bulletin boards since the 1980's) starting with the Apple computer and going to PC. All the PC is upgraded by himself from XT to the present Pentium duo core. The present Intel i7 CPU is out of reach at the moment because the CPU is still expensive. He is also into DIY changing his own toilet cistern and other electric appliance. His hunger for knowledge has not abated and he is a lifelong learner. The children have all grown up and there are 2 grandchildren who are even more technically advanced than the grandfather where mobile phones are concerned. This book is taken from some of the many articles in his blog (now with 740 posts) A Family Doctor’s Tale. Dr Kee is the author of: "A Family Doctor's Tale" "Life Lessons Learned From The Study And Practice Of Medicine" "Case Notes From A Family Doctor"