Thyroid Thursday Episode 51: Heart Palpitations and Thyroid Hormones
Today I want to talk about heart palpitations and thyroid hormones. Is there a link between the two?
So, if you wake up in the middle of the night and you get these heart palpitations or you feel this irregular heartbeat going on, it can be related to thyroid hormones – let’s talk about why.
Irregular heartbeat is called arrhythmia. The main cause of arrhythmia is atrial fibrillation. The symptoms of atrial fibrillation are fatigue, rapid or irregular heartbeat, faintness and confusion. Atrial fibrillation is typically associated with (or caused by) high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and older age (researchers talk about it being caused by older age – I really don’t think it’s caused by older age, I think it’s more prevalent as we get older because a lot of people are sicker).
The other thing researchers relate it to is hyperthyroidism. Some people have atrial fibrillation caused by Grave’s Disease (the main cause of hyperthyroidism). Others have atrial fibrillation as a result of a hyperthyroid state due to Hashimoto’s (and there’s a lot of thyroid hormone being dumped into the system all in a blast due to the damage to the tissue). Others may have atrial fibrillation due to being over-medicated and have too much thyroid hormone circulating around the body. Any hyperthyroid state whether it’s a glandular problem like Graves or Hashimoto’s, or over-medication, could trigger atrial fibrillation.
There’s also something called ventricular fibrillation. The symptoms of ventricular fibrillation are chest pain, fainting, low blood pressure, dizziness, rapid or irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath and nausea. The symptoms are similar. I think the difference here is low blood pressure versus high blood pressure.
When somebody has ventricular fibrillation, typically it’s associated with cellular hyperthyroidism (there’s a reduced amount of thyroid hormone at the cellular level). In the atrial fibrillation, there is excessive amounts of thyroid hormone at the cellular level. The other thing that can cause ventricular fibrillation is cardiac damage (someone’s had a heart attack, had some scarring of the heart).
What’s interesting to note, is that if you went to somebody with atrial fibrillation or ventricular fibrillation, or you had this irregular heartbeat, depending on the doctor you go to, you might get different treatments.
If you went to your GP, and they didn’t look at your thyroid levels or they weren’t looking at anything more than a TSH you might wind up on blood thinners, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, or a fourth medication called, cordarone/amiodarone, which is another medication that’s used to control arrhythmia or fibrillation. The challenge is that both types of fibrillation are caused by thyroid hormone disorders. If somebody’s not really looking at more than TSH, they may miss this and they may actually treat you for something that could easily be managed by addressing thyroid hormone physiology.
So, do you have too much thyroid hormone? Do you have too little thyroid hormone? That really needs to be looked at any time somebody’s got an arrhythmia or heart palpitations.
Interesting to note, as well, is how the cordarone/amiodarone medication works. It’s used for arrhythmia cases. It induces (at the cardiac tissue) a hypothyroid-like state because it blocks T3 function. It inhibits T3 from binding to receptors and actually working, so you get this hypothyroid state. The medication is thought to help reset the cardiac state, but it induces a hypothyroid state. So, depending on which pattern you have, this could potentially treat the symptom but make the person worse.
It’s also been known that it can cause or trigger Autoimmune thyroid disorders. You may have had cellular hypothyroidism due to some type of stress response, whether it’s physical, chemical, emotional or microbial, and your cellular system is down-regulating cellular metabolism. The cellular defense response can induce the arrhythmia and heart palpitations. If you’re prescribed a bunch of medications, especially the cordarone/amiodarone, it could trigger an autoimmune condition that you didn’t even have! You’ve got to be careful.
So, next time you have heart palpitations and you wonder if it’s related to your thyroid physiology, the answer is most likely yes. What we need to do, is figure out whether it’s being induced by too much thyroid hormone getting into the cellular system, the cardiac cells, or too little thyroid hormone getting to those same cells.
Alright! That’s it for this Thyroid Thursday – if it helped, that’s great. Put some comments in the area below wherever you’re watching this video. If you have questions about this video or any other video you can always reach out to me on my websites:
www.ChronicConditionRecoveryCenter.com
www.ThyroidProblemsDoctor.com
Take care, and have a great day!