What other treatments for atrial fibrillation are available?
Electrical Cardioversion: While chemical cardioversion includes the antiarrhythmic medications described above, electrical cardioversion uses electricity to help restore your heart to a normal rhythm. During electrical cardioversion, your physician will give your heart a brief electrical shock. This shock stops all electrical activity in your heart for a brief moment particularly the abnormal signals that cause atrial fibrillation. The expected outcome of this procedure is to have a regular, normal heart rhythm take over. Unfortunately, this does not always occur. More than one procedure may be needed to restore a normal rhythm in some people while in others, electrical cardioversion may not work at all. Catheter Ablation: Catheter ablation is performed by an electrophysiologist, a subspecialist in cardiology. During catheter ablation, a few cells of the atria, which are causing the fast heart rhythm are ablated or eliminated. During this procedure, a special wire (catheter) is inserte
