Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
What you can expect
By Mayo Clinic staff
During the procedure
A nurse or technician will place several large patches called electrodes on your chest. The electrodes will be connected to a cardioversion machine (defibrillator) using wires. The defibrillator will record your heart rhythm throughout the procedure, and will deliver shocks to your heart to restore a normal heart rhythm. This machine can also pace your heart if it beats too slowly after cardioversion.
Before the shocks are delivered, a nurse or technician will insert an intravenous (IV) line in your arm. The IV line is used to give you medications that will make you sleep during the procedure so you won't feel any pain from the shocks. Your doctor may also use the IV line to give you additional medications that can help restore your heart rhythm.
Once you're sedated, electric cardioversion usually only takes a few minutes to complete.
After the procedure
Electric cardioversion is done on an outpatient basis, meaning you can go home the same day your procedure is done. You'll spend about an hour in a recovery room being closely monitored for complications.
Because you'll be asleep for the procedure, your awareness of your surroundings may be affected afterward. You'll need someone to drive you home, and your ability to make decisions may be affected for several hours after your procedure.
Even if no clots were found in your heart before your procedure, you'll take blood thinning medications for several weeks after your procedure to prevent new clots from forming.
- Cardioversion. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/crv/crv_all.html. Accessed March 24, 2009.
- Fuster V, et al. ACC/AHA/ESC 2006 guidelines for the management of patients with atrial fibrillation - Executive summary. Circulation. 2006;114:700.
- Podrid PJ. Cardioversion for specific arrhythmias. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed March 24, 2009.
- Podrid PJ. Basic principles and technique for cardioversion and defibrillation. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed March 24, 2009.
