Your heart is the organ that is keeping you alive, without it, you would be dead, it’s that simple. Fibrillation is an abnormal heartbeat and an abnormal heartbeat can never be a good sign. This happens when, basically, parts of your heat stop working together and it just starts beating irregularly. Obviously this is a problem that could threaten your life and action should be taking as soon as possible.
Understanding the Heart
The heart is one organ only, but it is divided into four chambers within. This is also what is going to make the difference between Atrial Fibrillation (AFib) and Ventricular Fibrillation (VFib), since in the upper parts of the heart, the condition is called Atrial Fibrillation, and in the lower parts of the heart, the condition is called Ventricular Fibrillation.
They might be in the heart and almost on the same spot with small changes (up and down), but AFib and VFib have different effects on your body. When AFib occurs, it is a serious condition but people can live with it for years without even noticing it, however, it should still be treated as soon as possible. As for VFib, whenever it occurs, it’s an emergency and people should seek medical help as soon as possible when they detect it.
How They Function
A healthy heart takes one single heartbeat to flow blood from the upper chamber to its lower chamber and then takes another heart beat to pump blood from this lower chamber into the body itself. However, with AFib, the body isn’t synchronized and as such, the atria might not empty the blood within it completely. Although not life threatening in itself, AFib can lead to other life threatening problems if it is left untreated.
As for VFib, a heart with it has irregularly activity and acts in an unorganized manner, as such, it pumps blood very quickly, preventing it from pumping proper amounts of blood to the body. VFib is a serious medical emergency because the body can not receive enough blood due to the heart’s situation. People who are affected by VFib can have their blood pressure go down very fast and will ultimately faint or even experience sudden cardiac arrest.
The only way to fix a heart with VFib is through an electrical shock given with a defibrillator. If the shock is given to the patient at the correct time, the defibrillator can make the heart resume a healthy rate once again which will save the patient’s life. There is no option when it comes to VFib, it simply needs to be treated, and survival rates of patients with VFib outside hospitals are vey, very low, reaching as low as 2 percent. If not treated on time, people who do survive untreated VFib are likely to go into a coma.