What happens when an air bubble gets to your heart?
In: Biology
Liquids do not compress, gasses do. If the air bubble ls large enough when the heart contracts it doesn’t squeeze the air out of the heart chambers, it just compresses it. When the heart contracts while it’s filled with blood it gets squished out since it cannot compress.
To add to the previous comments; As your heart contracts it squeezes out the blood in the ventricle, because the blood is incompressible the localised pressure is increased and the blood is forced to flow. On the other side of the heart there’s now an opening region of lower pressure which allows the inflow of blood. As previously mentioned, gas is compressible and therefor a large enough bubble stuck in the heart will prevent the production of a sufficient pressure gradient throughout the vascular system, the gas bubble will just continue to be compressed as the heart is still technically functioning however no blood is being pumped.
It depends. A small enough air bubble just passes right through and dissolves in the lungs where there is plenty of gas exchange and the air can just diffuse out of the blood and into the space of your lungs. A larger bubble will interfere with blood flow, which is called a gas embolism.
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