Alcoholic Cardiomyopathy : Complications
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Congestive heart failure; Heart arrhythmias, including lethal arrhythmias.
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An arrhythmia is any disorder of your heart rate or rhythm. It means your heart beats too fast, too slow, or with an irregular pattern. When the heart beats faster than normal, it is called tachycardia. When the heart beats too slow, it is called bradycardia.
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An arrhythmia is an abnormality in the heart ' s rhythm, or heartbeat pattern. The heartbeat can be too slow, too fast, have extra beats, skip a beat, or otherwise beat irregularly.
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Heart failure, also called congestive heart failure, is a disorder in which the heart loses its ability to pump blood efficiently. The term "heart failure" should not be confused with cardiac arrest, a situation in which the heart actually stops beating.
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Heart failure can happen in two ways. The heart muscle may become weak and enlarged (systolic dysfunction). The weakened muscle doesn’t pump enough blood forward when the ventricles contract. Or, the heart muscle may become stiff (diastolic dysfunction). The stiff muscle can’t relax between contractions, which keeps the ventricles from filling with enough blood.
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