Arrhythmias--irregular heart rhythms--can range from the mild and generally innocuous to the life threatening. Depending on their severity and cause, they can be treated with medication, surgery or special medical devices. In some cases, they can even be treated with nonsurgical procedures.
Instructions
Treat Arrhythmias With Medication
1. Use digitalis (digoxin or digitoxin) or calcium channel blockers to slow down a heartbeat that is too fast. This is a condition called tachycardia. Digitalis slows the electrical signal that moves through the heart, while calcium channel blockers work to reduce the force of contractions in the heart and slow them down.
2. Try beta-blockers to slow the heart's contractions.
3. Take blood thinner--called an anticoagulant--to lower your risk of developing blood clots or having a stroke. Too slow or soft contractions can contribute to your risk of having a stroke.
Use Devices and Nonsurgical Methods of Treatment
4. Undergo catheter radio-frequency ablation to destroy abnormal heart tissue that can cause arrhythmias. For this procedure, a cardiologist threads a thin tube through blood vessels to gain access to the abnormal tissue, using a cutter or radio-frequency energy to destroy and/or remove it.
5. Have a skilled surgeon use freezing, called cryoablation, to create electrical barriers in your heart. This is called a minimal-access catheter maze procedure.
6. Allow your doctor to perform cardioversion to get your heart back to its normal rhythm.
7. Have a pacemaker implanted in your body to speed up your heart's rhythm.
8. Have an internal cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) implanted in your body. This device uses electronic shocks to normalize heart rhythms and produce more effective contractions of the heart muscle.
Undergo Surgery to Treat an Arrhythmia
9. Make surgery your last resort. Exhaust medication and nonsurgical methods before you even consider invasive surgical methods. Keep in mind, however, that you may have to choose surgery rather quickly if your arrhythmia is severe and life threatening.
10. Allow your surgeon to remove or destroy damaged or defective heart tissue.
11. Consider surgery to treat underlying causes of irregular heart rhythms. For example, if you have heart disease that is causing your arrhythmia, you may choose surgery to treat it and return your heart to a regular rhythm.
Tags: your heart, Allow your, calcium channel, calcium channel blockers, channel blockers