Managing AFib: understanding the treatment options

Your heart is a muscle, but it’s also a complex machine. Electrical impulses shoot through your heart, causing it to fill up with blood and then squeeze the blood out to the rest of the body. Ordinarily, the heart works at a steady rhythm. But when these electrical signals that coordinate heartbeats are not working properly, it can result in an abnormal heartbeat, called an arrhythmia.

When you have an arrhythmia, your heart beats too quickly, too slowly, or in an erratic pattern. Arrhythmias can hinder blood flow to the body, damaging organs and contributing to a range of potentially life-threatening health conditions, including cardiac arrest and stroke. Atrial fibrillation, or AFib, is the most common type of arrhythmia, expected to affect more than 12 million people in the United States by 2030.