Occasional Atrial Fibrillation

1. Permanent Atrial Fibrillation Definition
2. Atrial Fibrillation Symptoms And Treatment
3. What Can Trigger Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation, also known as A-fib, is the most common form of arrhythmia, which is a condition where a person experiences heart rhythm problems. Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation occurs when a. Occasional atrial fibrillation is a kind of arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat, which occurs every now and then and lasts from a few minutes to a few hours. It happens when chaotic electrical signals to the atria, or two upper chambers of the heart, cause it to contract, or tighten, quickly. This makes the heart beat faster, slower, or unevenly.

While atrial fibrillation may start out somewhat benign, over time it may progress and become much more serious.

During early episodes, atrial fibrillation may go away by itself within a few minutes, though over time, it may require medicine to go away. Some of the afib patients that we have spoken with said that in the early stages their atrial fibrillation symptoms were infrequent and often well-controlled by medication, which usually included rate control drugs or rhythm control drugs in combination with anticoagulants, such as Coumadin® or warfarin.

But over time, however, their atrial fibrillation episodes became more frequent, or lasted longer, and medication became less effective or even stopped working altogether. For some patients, the occasional episodes transformed over time and became constant.

As their afib grew worse, they felt increasingly tired, weak, and lifeless, and were concerned about the potential of even more serious health effects from afib, including congestive heart failure and stroke.

Permanent Atrial Fibrillation Definition

Categories of Atrial Fibrillation

Your atrial fibrillation will fall into one of several categories. This classification system is spelled out in the 2014 AHA/ACC/HRS Guidelines for the Management of Patients with Atrial Fibrillation¹ and is generally used by cardiologists, electrophysiologists, and surgeons.

• Paroxysmal, or intermittent — episodes that come and go and last seven days or less
• Persistent — continuous atrial fibrillation that lasts more than seven days
• Longstanding persistent — continuous afib that lasts longer than one year
• Permanent — continuous atrial fibrillation in which a decision has been made by the patient and the doctor not to try to restore normal sinus rhythm by any means, including catheter or surgical ablation

Atrial Fibrillation Symptoms And Treatment

Afib is progressive. Afib begets afib. You may start out with intermittent or paroxysmal atrial fibrillation and over time migrate to persistent atrial fibrillation. Or you may start out with persistent afib and migrate to longstanding persistent afib, or even permanent afib.

What Can Trigger Atrial Fibrillation

For purposes of discussing treatment here, we will discuss only paroxysmal, persistent and longstanding persistent atrial fibrillation. There are so many options now for atrial fibrillation treatment that the decision to not treat, and thus to be in permanent atrial fibrillation, is becoming increasingly rare. Some doctors now consider permanent afib to be an obsolete category.

The longer you have afib, or the more persistent it becomes, the harder it is to treat. You will find lots of information here about atrial fibrillation treatment and potential atrial fibrillation cures.

First, let's explore Why Afib is a Problem.

1 2014 AHA/ACC/HRS Guidelines for the Management of Patients with Atrial Fibrillation <http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early
/2014/04/10/CIR.0000000000000041.full.pdf >, Circulation, 2014; published online before print March 28 2014, doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000000041.