HEART ARRHYTHMIA |arrhythmia|arrhythmia|heart arrhythmia|cardiac arrhythmias To diagnose a heart arrhythmia, your doctor may ask about your arrhythmia. Often the first approach selected for the treatment of heart arrhythmias is the use of anti-arrhythmic medication. These may include digitalis, beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, anticoagulants, and other drugs. In many cases, medications to treat arrhythmias have to be taken for life. Medications are carefully selected because they may cause side effects. In some cases, drugs may provoke heart arrhythmias or make them worse. As a result, physicians will weigh the benefits of the drug against the risks of taking it. Your doctor will prescribe the dose or type of your medication suitable for treating your heart arrhythmia.Certain heart arrhythmias may be treated permanently with a technique known as ablation. Ablation alters the abnormal electrical connection or impulse in the heart in order to permanently interrupt the arrhythmia. Depending on the heart arrhythmia and the patient's medical condition, this procedure may be performed with a catheter or, alternatively, during heart surgery. A catheter is a very thin tube that is inserted in a vein in the patient's leg and threaded to the heart where it delivers energy to treat the patient's arrhythmia. In surgical procedures, a flexible probe is used directly on an exposed heart to apply the energy that interrupts the heart arrhythmia. Doing nothing about your heart arrhythmia is not a good option. Arrhythmias are a potentially serious medical condition. If left untreated, they can be the cause of serious heart problems and even lead to death. Cryoablation allows the electrophysiologist to slightly freeze tissue to test whether it is responsible for conducting an heart arrhythmia. Heat-based therapies don’t allow that – once the tissue is burned, it stays burned. By contrast, cryoablation allows the electrophysiologist to re-warm frozen tissue (that is not responsible for the arrhythmia) and restore its normal electrical function. Many patients choose catheter ablation because it is a low-risk procedure that may cure their heart arrhythmia. |
