eli5 How does the heart restart itself after defibrilation.

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eli5 How does the heart restart itself after defibrilation.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

That is a myth often propagated through TV and movies. The heart will start on its own if it is healthy. There is no need to kickstart it. However it is possible that the heart starts to fibrillate. Normally the different muscle groups in the heart gets triggered by each other so they all keep in the same rhythm. However when the heart fibrillates your heart gets two rhythms going at once which overlap each other and causes issues for each other. This will usually solve itself once the cause of the fibrillation is fixed but if not then it is possible to shock the heart with a defibrillator to force it back into rhythm. This is the use of a defibrillator and not for restarting a heart. It is possible that when the heart starts up it could be fibrillating due to the unusual circumstances. Your heart does not normally stop like that and it might not restart in perfect rhythm. So then after the heart have started and the doctors have diagnosed a fibrillation preventing the heart from pumping blood around the body and this does not clear itself in a reasonable time they have to use the defibrillator.

Anonymous 0 Comments

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