Heart Arterial Fibrillation Cures

When you suffer from atrial fibrillation, the upper two chambers of your heart beat at a different rate than the lower two chambers. Heart disease is by far the most common cause of this irregular, often fast heartbeat, but you may also develop this condition because of high blood pressure, emphysema, heart defects, valvular problems, hormonal deficiencies, infections and even caffeine. While the condition itself isn't necessarily dangerous, it can eventually lead to serious complications, such as heart failure or stroke, making treatment an essential part of maintaining good health.

Underlying Condition

• Before attempting to treat atrial fibrillation, your doctor must first discern whether the irregular rhythm in the upper quadrants of your heart is being prompted by another condition. If an actual cause is responsible, no treatment is necessary to "cure" fibrillation. The approach to care typically revolves around managing the underlying condition. Once this condition is under control, the rapid rhythm can cease to be a problem.

Cardioversion

• If the management of an underlying condition fails to provide results, or no other condition is found responsible, treatment frequently moves to a process known as cardioversion. This type of procedure essentially entails "resetting" the beat of your heart, so that the upper two chambers coordinate with the lower two chambers. This is done either through a medication or an electrical impulse.

  With a drug-induced cardioversion, a medication used to treat arrhythmias is used to correct the unsynchronized rhythm. As the drugs are administered, you'll more than likely need to stay at a hospital where your doctor can better supervise the efficacy of the drug as well as your heart rate. With a cardioversion done electrically, an impulse is delivered to your heart to briefly stop it. As it begins again, the hope is that the rhythm will have adjusted back to normal. Both procedures are usually followed with a prescription to an anti-arrhythmic medication to help maintain this normalized heartbeat.

Medication

• For some people, cardioversion can't bring your heart back to a normal rate, so a different form of medication is usually the next line of defense. Most of the time, these drugs are commonly used to treat other heart disorders. Antidysrhytmic, such as digoxin, is probably the most widely prescribed medication for this disorder, but you may also end up taking a beta blocker or a calcium channel blocker.

Ablation

• Another potential treatment is ablation, a process of using radio frequency to bring the upper and lower quadrants of your heart back into rhythm. When this approach is used, a small section of cardiac tissue is destroyed and a pacemaker is used to ensure that your heart rate stays in time.

Surgery

• When other treatments don't provide the necessary results, a surgical procedure is necessary. In this procedure, scar tissue is created along sections of the upper portion of your heart by way of a series of incisions. The scar tissue should interfere with the abnormal impulses that are causing your upper two chambers to get out of rhythm with your bottom two.