Noninvasive Treatments To Assist With Heart Arrhythmia

If you have a heart arrhythmia or an abnormal heart beat, then it is best to seek out care with a cardiologist. This heart professional can treat the ailment to return your heart to a normal rhythm. While invasive surgical procedures are sometimes required, there are several noninvasive and mildly invasive treatments that can be used first.

Shock Treatment

Sometimes an irregular heartbeat can be repaired by simply disrupting the electrical signals that are contributing to the rhythm. Basically, this is like forcing the electrical signals to restart with the correct impulses. Often, the arrhythmia is caused by the incorrect order of electrical impulses or ones that move too fast or too slow. The treatment can correct this.

Shock treatments or cardioversion therapy is conducted with either patches or paddles placed on the chest. These are the same sorts of instruments used when an individual goes into cardiac arrest. However, the electrical impulse is not nearly as strong.

If the arrhythmia is mild, then the cardioversion therapy may be conducted with the help of medication. 

Ablation

Typically, a small section of the heart will cause the arrhythmia issues. This issues occurs as the electrical signal is disrupted in some way in one area of the heart. The disruption causes a delay in the transmission of the electrical impulse and the heart rhythm slows down. The same sort of disruption can cause the beat to speed up, but a slower one is much more common.

To reduce the disruption, your cardiologist can use tools to heat, cool, or burn the area of the heart causing the issue. This does require a mildly invasive procedure where electrodes are moved through the blood vessels until the heart is reached. The ablation is completed, the electrodes are removed, and the arrhythmia is investigated.

While the ablation may sound a bit scary, it really is no more invasive than the advanced imaging tests that helped your physician diagnose your condition. 

Medications can be used to treat arrhythmias and so can small implants that are placed near the collarbone. Also, there are some surgical operations that involve the heart that are far less invasive than a full bypass operation. 

Since there are so many options available to fix an arrhythmia, your cardiologist can work with you to choose the treatment that you are most comfortable with. Meet with your cardiologist to find out more about treatments so you can make the best choice for your condition.