Atrial Fibrillation,mood changes and dizziness

Dear Ask The Doctor: Can atrial fibrillation cause severe mood changes such as extreme irritability, depression, dizziness, clumziness, forgettfulness?

Dear Lori: Atrial Fibrillation typically can cause palpitations, dizziness along with some chest discomfort . However it would not cause the  other symptoms you have mentioned above unless a clot or embolus travels to the brain due to the fibrillation leading to a stoke and thus those symptoms. There can be many other causes for the symptoms that you have mentioned and they range from thyroid disorders which causes mood changesm decreased metabolism and energy, forgetfullness to depression which can also cause similar symptoms. You have not given me much information here regarding how often this occurs and in what situations and thus it is difficult to point out to an exact cause. Again Dizziness on its own has different causative factors like ear disease, brain tumor , high bp or just metabolic causes like low blood sugar.

You need to contact you family physician for a more in depth history and physican examination followed by any tests of needed.