Stogey,
Ok, I've been sipping the Hoegarten for a while and I'm a liitle happy but I'll try to make this cogent.
Atrial fibulation is a very common cardiac event. It is NOT a heart attack! You can live a realtively "normal" life with Afib. You must follow up with your Primary Care Phyisician and follow his advise about your future life and lifestyle.
In simple terms..
Your heart is divided into 4 chambers. The two top chambers are called the atria. The two bottom chambers are called the ventricles. Blood leaves your heart from the left ventricle and flows thruout your body. It returns to the heart and collects in the R atria. Every second or so the R atria squezes the blood that has collected in it down to the right ventricle. A half second later the right ventricle squeeze the blood out into the lungs. The blood flows thru the lungs, exchanging CO2 for Oxygen and flows back to the Left atria. Syncronous with the R atria, the left atria squeezes every second or so and pumps the freshly oxygenated blood into the left ventricle where it is pumped out to the body. It is ussualy a very coordinated effort between the atria and the ventricles. There is an area in the R atria the acts as a pacemaker, setting the beat for the heart. Every second or so it sends out a tiny electrical impulse. This impulse travels down thru the center of the heart, thru what are in essence wires. When the impulse gets to the end of the 'wire' it it is at the bottom of the heart muscle. At that point it turns upward and travels thru the heart muscle. Do you remember back in junior high school, you probalby conducted a science experiment where you took a frogs leg and attached it to a battery? When you touched the battery wire to the leg it 'jumped!' Thats because a muscle, any muscle, only does one thing. It contracts or shortens when electricity goes thru it. When the electricity flows thru the heart muscle it makes the muscle fibers contract or shorten and the heart essentially squeezes together, squishing the blood out the top. There you go, Cardiology 101.
The problem with afib is that the area the is supposed to send out that beat every second or so (The SA node) isn't doing it's job. The atria, instead of beating in an organized synchronized manner, are sort of quivering. Your ventricles are still beating in response to a fallback beatkeeper just below the SA node (The AV node) and they are pushng blood thru your body, just not as effectivly as they would be if you had the atria helping out.
So instead of blood coming back to the atria and immediatly getting squished down into the ventricles and out to the body, it tends to sit in the ventricles. And what can happen to blood that sits? It can clot. Clots in cuts in your finger are good, clots in you heart are bad. Your MD may put you on medicine to reduce the likelyhood of clots forming. He may offer you various treatments to restore your atrias natural beat. He may also not do anthing. You need to see your physician and follow his advice. Lots of folks are wandering around with afib. With proper medical care it's something you can live with. I would be sure to tell your doc that you dive, and ask him if he wants you to stop for now. Be sure to ask him if he is current with diving physiology. (You won't be insulting him by asking, let him know that you routinely subject your body to (x) times the usual pressure depending on depth and what will that mean for your afib? Then follow his advise. And don't be afraid to get a second opinion.
Good luck
