What is tachycardia? Fast heartbeat

Expand All

What is tachycardia?

Tachycardia is a condition where the heart beats too fast. A healthy heart beats 60 to 100 times per minute, pumping about 75 gallons of blood every hour. Exercise, stress, or fear can cause the heart to beat faster, but this is a normal response.

With tachycardia, the heart beats more than 100 times per minute and can beat as fast as 400 beats per minute for no specific reason. At this rate, the heart is not able to pump blood effectively to the body and brain. Talk to a doctor to discuss causes, symptoms, risk factors, and potential treatment options.

What are the different types of fast heartbeats that can occur?

What is an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD)?

Get Heart Device Answers.

Visit HeartDeviceAnswers.com, an interactive website full of questions and answers about living with a heart device.

Follow us on Facebook.

Visit the Medtronic Heart Facebook page and explore updates and information regarding Medtronic heart devices.