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If you have an arrhythmia, you might experience a fluttering sensation in your chest or feel like your heart is skipping a beat. Atrial fibrillation, or AFib, is the most common type of arrhythmia.
Some arrhythmias don’t cause symptoms and are not life-threatening. But certain types, such as ventricular tachycardia, can increase your risk of heart failure and sudden cardiac death.
The heart rhythm specialists, or electrophysiologists, at the Heart and Vascular Institute have deep expertise diagnosing and treating arrhythmias.
Arrhythmia care at Lehigh Valley Heart and Vascular Institute
When you come to the Heart and Vascular Institute for heart rhythm care, you benefit from:
Dedicated team of experts: Our board-certified team of electrophysiologists work collaboratively with cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons and heart imaging specialists to accurately diagnose and treat your heart rhythm problem.
Advanced diagnostics: Our sophisticated 3D heart mapping system pinpoints the source of arrhythmias that often go undetected. The high resolution enables our team to treat arrhythmias with more precision.
Care for all types of arrhythmias: We’re the region’s leader in treating heart rhythm disorders, from the simple to complex, including:
- Atrial fibrillation (AFib)
- Atrial flutter
- Ventricular flutter
- Ventricular tachycardia
- Paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia
Support services: Arrhythmias can last a lifetime. We offer ongoing care and monitoring for people with heart rhythm devices like pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs).
Wide range of treatments: We offer a complete suite of medical, surgical and catheter-based treatments for heart rhythm problems, including:
- Complex ablations: Using the tip of a small catheter and heat (radiofrequency) or extreme cold (cryoablation), your cardiologist scars the heart tissue responsible for sending erratic electrical signals. We offer the latest ablation procedures for difficult-to-treat arrhythmias, such as complex ventricular tachycardias.
- Maze procedures: Your doctor makes tiny incisions in a maze pattern on heart tissue. Scar tissue that forms around these incisions redirects the heart’s electrical signals.
- Pacemakers: We offer Micra™, the world’s smallest, wire-free pacemaker, as well as MRI-compatible pacemakers. We’re also experts in cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) using biventricular pacemakers. This device keeps the right and left ventricles pumping together.
- Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD): ICDs work similar to pacemakers to restore a normal heartbeat. We offer a wireless subcutaneous (under-the-skin) ICD known as S-ICD.
- WATCHMAN™ device: People who have arrhythmias are prone to developing blood clots in the heart’s left atrial appendage (LAA). WATCHMAN seals off the LAA, preventing clots from entering the bloodstream. This device reduces stroke risk and can be an alternative for patients who can’t take blood thinners.
- Medication management: Some heart rhythm problems improve with medications that control heart rhythm or heart rate. You also may need blood thinners to lower stroke risk.
- Lead extractions: When necessary, our doctors use laser energy to surgically remove problematic leads, or wires, from pacemakers and ICDs. These wires may need to be replaced due to damage, recall, blockage or infection.