Heart Treatments

Arrhythmia means your heart doesn’t beat with the right rhythm. To treat the condition, your doctor may recommend:

• Medications – Control your heartbeat and reduce the risk of stroke
• Cardioversion – Uses medicine or electricity to restore normal rhythm to your heart
• Pacemaker or implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) – Makes your heart beat normally by sending electrical signals to it from a device placed under your skin

When coronary (heart) arteries become clogged with fat, they slow blood flow and increase your risk of a heart attack. Doctors can improve your blood flow and prevent heart damage with:

• Medications – Decrease cholesterol (fat), thin your blood, or lower blood pressure
• Angioplasty – Inserts a tiny balloon into an artery, inflates it to widen the blood vessel, and places a stent (tiny tube) to keep the artery open
• Atherectomy – Uses a tiny drill you can’t feel to shave away fat in an artery

Attend regular appointments with our care team to manage heart failure and live well. You’ll learn how to:

• Reduce symptoms with medications and lifestyle changes, such as exercising and eating healthy foods
• Recognize signs of the disease and understand when to call your doctor
• Prevent a hospital stay or trip to the emergency room
• Take part in clinical trials, which research new approaches to monitoring and treating heart failure

Four valves control the flow of blood through your heart. Sometimes, blood doesn’t flow as it should because a valve leaks or gets clogged with plaque (fat). If you’re diagnosed with heart valve disease, you may benefit from:    

• Medications – Lessen the heart’s workload, lower blood pressure, prevent blood clots, or treat your condition in other ways
• Valvuloplasty – Inflates a tiny balloon in a narrowed valve to widen the valve’s opening and restore full blood flow
• Valve repair – Uses surgery to fix a valve
• Valve replacement – Exchanges your valve with one made from metal or donor tissue