The pericardium has two layers and pericardial fluid that holds our heart in place. Cardiac tamponade also called “pericardial tamponade”, happens when the pericardium fills with fluid (usually pericardial fluid or blood). Because the fluid has nowhere to go, our heart runs out of room and can’t expand enough to fill effectively.
When our heart can’t fill with blood properly, it can’t pump as much, and our blood pressure drops, in situations like this our heart may beat faster (more than 100 beats per minute) to try to pump more blood.
Cancer, infections, trauma and certain diseases can cause cardiac tamponade.
How cardiac tamponade relates to pericardial effusion
Pericardial effusion is the technical term for when the pericardium is filling up with fluid. Effusions can consist of blood, discharge and other blood component products. A pericardial effusion doesn’t always cause cardiac tamponade, especially when the fluid builds up slowly over time. This is because it has time to stretch and make more room for fluid, and the process may not cause symptoms. Cardiac tamponade is when pressure from surrounding fluid keeps our heart from beating properly.
Symptoms
When this condition happens quickly, cardiac tamponade symptoms may include:
- Sharp pain in the chest. The pain may also radiate or extend to nearby parts of your body like your arm, back, neck or shoulder. It may also get worse when you breathe deeply, lie flat or cough.
- Trouble breathing or breathing rapidly.
- Fainting, dizziness or lightheadedness.
- Changes in skin color, especially pale, gray or blue-tinted skin.
- Heart palpitations (where you become unpleasantly aware of your heartbeat).
- Fast pulse.
- Altered mental status. A person with cardiac tamponade won’t act like themselves and may act confused or agitated.
When the condition happens more slowly, patient may also have these cardiac tamponade symptoms:
- Shortness of breath.
- Swelling in abdomen or legs.
- Fatigue or tiredness.
- Chest discomfort that typically gets better when patient lean forward or sit up.
Causes of cardiac tamponade
Cardiac tamponade causes include:
- Blunt trauma, such as a fall or a car crash.
- Penetrating trauma, like a stab wound from a knife.
- Aortic dissection.
- Advanced cancer.
- Heart attack.
- Tuberculosis (TB).
- Inflammation or infection of the pericardium.
- Chronic immune diseases like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma.
- Heart cancer.
- Heart or kidney failure.
- Hypothyroidism.
In some cases, cardiac tamponade can also happen after an allopathic medical procedure, for example:
- Surgery on heart or near the pericardium.
- Catheter-based procedures that involve the heart or surrounding blood vessels.
- Placement of pacemaker etc.
- Radiation therapy near the heart or pericardium.
Who is at risk for cardiac tamponade?
Fluid is more likely to build up in pericardium if a person has:
- Congestive heart failure.
- Heart surgery or catheter-based procedures.
- HIV.
- End-stage kidney disease.
- Autoimmune diseases.
- Cancer.
- Tuberculosis.
Complications of cardiac tamponade
Cardiac tamponade complications can include:
- Cardiogenic shock.
- Heart failure.
- Death.
Cardiac tamponade is dangerous because it ultimately limits the amount of blood a person’s heart can pump (cardiac output). This deprives the body of blood and oxygen. Eventually, it can cause our heart to stop entirely, a potentially fatal condition called cardiac arrest.
Diagnosis
Several different tests and methods can help diagnose cardiac tamponade. A doctor should start with a physical exam. This will include:
- Taking pulse.
- Checking blood pressure.
- Checking breathing.
- Listening to the heart and breathing sounds.
- Checking for a sign called pulsus paradoxus, where patient’s blood pressure drops unusually each time, he/she takes a breath.
Hallmark cardiac tamponade signs are those known as Beck’s triad:
- Low blood pressure (hypotension).
- Bulging neck veins.
- Heartbeats that sound distant or muffled when a doctor listens through a stethoscope.
Only 10% to 40% of people with cardiac tamponade have Beck’s triad.
What tests will be done to diagnose cardiac tamponade?
Tests to diagnose cardiac tamponade include:
- Echocardiogram (Echo).
- Chest X-ray.
- Computed tomography (CT) scan.
- Electrocardiogram (EKG).
- Heart catheterization.
Allopathic treatment for cardiac tamponade
Allopath treatment for cardiac tamponade requires removing the fluid from around the heart, this procedure called pericardiocentesis. A provider may also need to repair damage related to the fluid buildup.
Which treatment is used for cardiac tamponade?
Cardiac tamponade treatment may include using a needle (pericardiocentesis) or performing surgery.
Surgery may be a better option if:
- An injury caused the cardiac tamponade.
- Damages that need to be repaired.
- A needle can’t reach accumulated fluid.
- If it’s necessary to remove pericardium.
In especially severe cases, such as when patient’s heart stops because of cardiac tamponade, a doctor can do a thoracotomy by the bedside in the emergency room (ER).
Patient should feel better right away when doctor removes the excess fluid from pericardium. The drainage tube will remain for three or ten days so the fluid can keep draining. Echocardiograms can show how much fluid is left in pericardium. This will help to decide when to remove the drain.
A good doctor has to treat the cause of cardiac tamponade, as well. Depending on what caused patient’s cardiac tamponade and which treatment patient had. It’s necessary to advise pain medications (painkillers), antibiotics and sometime corticosteroids.
Discharging patient from the hospital after cardiac tamponade treatment, tell him to keep taking your prescribed medicines, going to follow-up appointments is important, cardiac tamponade can happen more than once.
Sometimes patient should have another echocardiogram about one or two weeks after first cardiac tamponade treatment. Patient also need to have a follow-up appointment with a cardiologist at that time.
Complications/side effects of the allopathic treatment
Pericardiocentesis and surgery can have the following complications:
- Bleeding.
- Injury to the heart’s chambers or surrounding blood vessels.
- Collapsed lung (pneumothorax).
- Air in pericardium (pneumopericardium).
- Heart attack.
- Pulmonary edema.
- Infection.
- Irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia).
- Injury to nearby organs, including your liver, lungs or stomach.
- Death.
Homeopathic Treatment for cardiac tamponade
For allopath’s cardiac tamponade is a surgical condition, but it can be corrected by well selected Homoeopathic medicines easily. In Homeopathy, there is not any concept of surgery for almost 99% of diseases. This constitutional approach framing mind and body works at the root-level and will help strengthen all muscular sphincters. For cardiac tamponade there are dozens of well proven medicines, very few of them are as under:
Apis Mellifica
Swelling or puffing up of various parts, organs, oedema, red, rosy hue, stinging pains, soreness, intolerance of heat, and slightest touch, and afternoon aggravation are some of the general guiding symptoms. Cardiac tamponade. Erysipelatous inflammations, dropsical effusions and anasarca, acute, inflammation of kidneys, and other parenchymatous tissues are characteristic pathological states corresponding to Apis. Apis acts especially pericardium, coatings of inner organs, serous membranes, skin etc. It reduces and cures serous inflammation with effusion, membranes of brain, heart, pleuritic effusion etc. Extreme sensitiveness to touch and general soreness. Constricted sensations. Sensation of stiffness and as of something torn off in the interior of the body. Much prostration.
Belladona
Belladonna acts upon every part of the nervous system, producing active congestion, furious excitement, perverted special senses, twitching, convulsions and pain. It has a marked action on the vascular system, skin and glands. Belladonna always is associated with hot, red skin, flushed face, glaring eyes, throbbing carotids, excited mental state, hyperesthesia of all senses, delirium, restless sleep, convulsive movements, dryness of mouth and throat with aversion to water, neuralgic pains that come and go suddenly. Cardiac tamponade – feels heat, redness, throbbing and burning.
Respiration oppressed, quick, unequal. Cheyne-Stokes respiration. Stitches in chest when coughing. Violent palpitation, reverberating in head, with labored breathing. Palpitation from least exertion. Throbbing all through body. Dichroism. Heart seemed too large. Rapid but weakened pulse.
Carduus Marianus
The action of this drug is centered in the liver, and vascular/portal system, curing soreness, pain, jaundice. Varicose veins and ulcers. Diseases of miners, associated with asthma. Dropsical conditions depending on liver disease, and when due to pelvic congestion and hepatic disease. Disturbs sugar metabolism. Debility. Hemorrhages internally and/or externally. Nausea; retching; vomiting of green, acid fluid. Stitches in left side of chest, in stomach, near spleen. Gallstone disease with enlarged liver.
Pain in region of liver. Left lobe very sensitive. Fullness and soreness, with moist skin. Constipation. Hyperemia of liver, with jaundice. Cirrhosis, with dropsy. Stitching pains in lower right ribs and front; worse, moving, walking, etc. Asthmatic respiration. Pain in chest, going to shoulders, back, loins and abdomen, with urging to urinate. Cardiac tamponade.
Aurum Metallcum
Given full play, Aurum attacks the blood, glands, and bone, conditions bearing striking. Arterio-sclerosis, high blood pressure; nightly paroxysms of pain behind sternum. Sclerosis of liver, arterial system, brain. Sensation as if the heart stopped beating for two or three seconds, immediately followed by a tumultuous rebound, with sinking at the epigastrium. Cardiac tamponade. Palpitation. Pulse rapid, feeble, irregular. Hypertrophy. High Blood Pressure-Valvular lesions of arterio-sclerotic nature. Dyspnea at night. Frequent, deep breathing; stitches in sternum.
Aloe Socotrina
An excellent remedy to aid in re-establishing physiological equilibrium after much dosing, where disease and drug symptoms are much mixed. There is no remedy richer in symptoms of portal congestion and none that has given better clinical results, both for the primary pathological condition and secondary phenomena.
Pain around navel, worse pressure. Fullness in region of liver, in chest. Pain under the ribs. Abdomen feels full, heavy, hot, bloated. Cardiac tamponade. Cough with itching. Difficult respiration, with stitches in chest. Pain in small of back; worse moving. Stitches through sacrum. Lumbago alternating with headache and piles. Lameness in all limbs. Drawing pains in joints. Soles pain when walking.
Bryonia Alba
Acts on all serous membranes and the viscera they contain. Aching in every muscle. The general character of the pain here produced is a stitching, tearing, worse by motion, better rest. These characteristic stitching pains, greatly aggravated by any motion, are found everywhere, but especially in the chest, worse pressure.
Mucous membranes are all dry. Patient is irritable; has vertigo from raising the head, pressive headache; dry, parched lips, mouth; excessive thirst, bitter taste, sensitive epigastrium, and feeling of a stone in the stomach; stools large, dry, hard; dry cough; rheumatic pains and swellings; dropsical effusions into synovial and serous membranes. Cardiac tamponade.
Liver region swollen, sore, tensive. Burning pain, stitches; worse, pressure, coughing, breathing. Tenderness of abdominal walls. Soreness in larynx and trachea. Frequent desire to take a long breath; must expand lungs. Difficult, quick respiration; worse every movement; caused by stitches in chest. Cough, with feeling as if chest would fly to pieces; presses his head on sternum; must support chest. Heaviness beneath the sternum extending towards the shoulder. Stitches in cardiac region. Angina pectoris.
Mercurius Solubilis
Every organ and tissue of the body is more or less affected by this powerful drug; it transforms decrepit, inflamed and necrotic wrecks cells into healthy, profound anemia. The lymphatic system is especially affected with all the membranes and glands, and internal organs, bones etc. Febrile chloro-anemia, rheumatoid arthritis, pains behind sternum, around joints, etc. Bullae, abscesses, snuffles, marasmus, stomatitis or destructive inflammations. Cardiac tamponade. Tremors everywhere. Weakness with ebullitions and trembling from least exertion. Complaints increase with the sweat and rest; all associated with a great deal of weariness, prostration, and trembling.
Feels replete and constricted. Stitches from lung to back. Bruised pain in small of back, especially when sitting. Tearing pain in coccyx; better, pressing on abdomen.
Lycopodium Clavatum
Tickling cough. Dyspnea. Tensive, constrictive, burning pain in chest. Cough – deep, hollow. Expectorations gray, thick, bloody, purulent, salty. Neglected pneumonia, with great dyspnea. Aneurism. Aortic disease. Palpitation at night. Cannot lie on left side. Cardiac tamponade. Burning between scapulae as of hot coals. Pain in small of back.
Baryta Carbonica
Diseases of old men when degenerative changes begin; cardiac vascular and cerebral. Affects glandular structures, and useful in general degenerative changes, especially in coats of arteries, aneurism, and senility. Arterial fibrosis. Cardiac tamponade. Blood-vessels soften and degenerate, become distended, and aneurisms, ruptures, and apoplexies result. Palpitation and distress in region of heart. Aneurism. Accelerates the heart’s action at first, blood pressure much increased, contraction of blood vessels. Palpitation when lying on left side, when thinking of it especially; pulse full and hard. Cardiac symptoms after suppressed foot-sweat.
Zinc Metallicum
Cardiac tamponade. Burning pressure beneath sternum. Constriction and cutting in chest. Hoarseness. Debilitating, spasmodic cough. Child grasps genitals during cough. Asthmatic bronchitis, with constriction, of chest. Pain in small of back. Cannot bear back touched. Tension and stinging between shoulders. Spinal irritation. Dull aching about the last dorsal or first lumbar vertebrae; worse sitting. Burning along spine. Tearing in shoulder-blades.
Plumbum Metallicum
Localized neuralgic pains, neuritis. The blood, alimentary and nervous systems are the special seats of action of Plumbum. Constrictive sensation in internal organs. Delirium, coma and convulsions. Hypertension and arteriosclerosis. Progressive muscular atrophy. Cardiac tamponade. Excessive and rapid emaciation. Contractions and boring pain. All the symptoms of acute. Nephritis with amaurosis and cerebral symptoms. Gout. Cardiac weakness. Pulse soft and small, dichroitic. Wiry pulse, camp-like constriction of peripheral arteries.
Agaricus Muscarious
Labored, oppressed breathing. Cough ends in a sneeze. Heart irregular, tumultuous palpitation, after tobacco. Pulse intermittent and irregular. Cardiac region oppressed, as if thorax were narrowed. Palpitation with redness of face. Cardiac tamponade. Back pain, with sensitiveness of spine to touch; worse in dorsal region. Crick in back. Twitching of cervical muscles.
Heliborus Niger
Frequent sighing. Respiration irregular. Chest constricted, gasps for breath. Breathes easier lying down. Breathing difficult with anxiety. Hydrothorax. Cardiac tamponade. Constriction of the throat, nose, and chest. Heat in the chest. Palpitation of the heart. Anxiousness about heart which prevents him resting anywhere. Lips dry and cracked. Tongue red and dry. Falling of lower jaw.
Chelidonium Majus
Hydrocele. Cardiac tamponade. Bilious complication. Nausea, vomiting. Very quick and short inspirations; pain on deep inspiration. Dyspnea. Short, exhausting cough; sensation of dust not relieved by cough. Constriction of chest. Pain in nape. Stiff neck, head drawn to left. Fixed pain under scapulas. Pain at lower angle of left scapula.
Lachesis Mutis
Sensation of suffocation and strangulation on lying down. Spasm of glottis. Must take a deep breath. Cramp-like distress in precordial region. Cough; dry, suffocative fits, tickling. Little secretion and much sensitiveness; worse, pressure on larynx. Cardiac tamponade. Palpitation, with fainting spells, sensation of tension in various parts. Constricted feeling causing palpitation, with anxiety. Cyanosis. Irregular beats.
Fluoricum Acidum
Glabella region bloated. Acts especially upon lower tissues, and indicated in deep, destructive processes, bedsores, ulcerations, varicose veins, cardiac tamponade and ulcers. Patient is compelled to move about energetically. Complaints of old age, or the prematurely aged, with weak, distended blood vessels. Hob-nailed liver of alcoholics. Goiter. Early decay of teeth. Varicose veins.
Hydrastis Canadensis
Acts especially on mucous membranes, relaxing them. Asthma and oedema. Palpitation with faintness, palpitation, pain shooting from chest to left shoulder with numbness of arm, irregular and at times labored action. Feeling of immediate suffocation on attempting to lie on left side. Heart agitated. Violent long-continued palpitation in morning. Pulse slow. Cardiac tamponade.
Arsenicum Album
A profoundly acting remedy on every organ and tissue. Debility, exhaustion, and restlessness, with nightly aggravation. Great exhaustion after the slightest exertion. Peculiar irritability of fiber gives the characteristic irritable weakness. Burning pains. Unquenchable thirst. Cardiac tamponade. Unable to lie down; fears suffocation. Asthma worse midnight. Burning in chest. Suffocative catarrh. Wheezing respiration. Hemoptysis with pain between shoulders; burning heat all over. Palpitation, pain, dyspnea, faintness. Irritable heart in smokers and tobacco-chewers. Pulse more rapid. Dilatation. Cyanosis. Fatty degeneration. Angina pectoris.
Apocynum Cannabinum
A diminished frequency of the pulse is a prime indication. Increases secretions of mucous and serous membranes and acts on cellular tissue. Edema and dropsy and diaphoresis. Acute hydrocephalus. Best in dropsies, ascites, cardiac tamponade, anasarca and hydrothorax, and urinary troubles, especially suppression and strangury. The dropsy is characterized by great thirst and gastric irritability. Arrhythmia. Mitral and tricuspid regurgitation. Relaxation of sphincters. Cardiac tamponade.
Oppression in epigastrium and chest, impeding breathing. Ascites. Short, dry cough, cardiac cough. Respiratory short and unsatisfactory. Sighing. Oppression about epigastrium and chest. Tricuspid regurgitation; rapid and feeble, irregular cardiac action, low arterial tension, pulsating jugulars, general cyanosis and general dropsy.
Lobelia Inflata (wild tobacco)
Dyspnea from constriction of chest. Tickling in larynx, with frequent fits of short coughing; dryness in throat, with sensation as though a solid body were there impeding both respiration and deglutition. Irritation which provokes coughing and expectoration. Pain in chest, with breathing. Burning in chest. Respiration anxious, difficult, sobbing. Precordial anxiety. Deep-seated pain in heart. Sensation of weakness and pressure in epigastrium rising to heart. Sensation as if heart would stand still, a pain deep in above heart. Cardiac tamponade. Dyspnea and suffocation from every rapid movement. Vertigo, and threatened loss of consciousness and a peculiar confusion of head. Pulse small; and weak.
P. S: This article is only for doctors having good knowledge about Homeopathy and allopathy, for learning purpose(s).
For proper consultation and treatment, please visit our clinic.
Location, address and contact numbers are given below.
None of above-mentioned medicine(s) is/are the full/complete treatment, but just hints for treatment; every patient has his/her own constitutional medicine.
To order medicine by courier, please send your details at WhatsApp– +923119884588
Dr. Sayyad Qaisar Ahmed (MD {Ukraine}, DHMS), Abdominal Surgeries, Oncological surgeries, Gastroenterologist, Specialist Homeopathic Medicines.
Senior research officer at Dnepropetrovsk state medical academy Ukraine.
Location: Al-Haytham clinic, Umer Farooq Chowk Risalpur Sadder (0923631023, 03119884588), K.P.K, Pakistan.
Find more about Dr Sayed Qaisar Ahmed at:
https://www.youtube.com/Dr Qaisar Ahmed