ablations

Hey everyone! I am 26 years old with long q-t syndrome and have an ICD. Since I gave birth to my daughter 3 months ago, I have been having awful flutters and palpitations. So much so, that my defibrillator has fired on me a few times. I have been put on verapamil and will be getting an ablation in February. My questions to you all are:
1) Have you had an ablation? Can you tell me about your experiences? What the procedure was like, how long, pain level and recovery time?
2) Has anyone taken Verapamil before? Has it successfully lowered your heart rate and made you feel better? Can you exercise? I tend to have low blood pressure normally, so this medicine is making me dizzy and hard to perform my job on a daily basis. I just started taking it yesterday.

I have had 5 procedures in the past 9 years so I am very nervous about having the ablation done. Any information/personal experience will be appreciated. :)

1 Comments

Hi Jofosqk

by IAN MC - 2014-12-18 03:12:19

I can understand you being nervous about having an ablation but there really is no need ; it sounds FAR worse than it is . To answer your questions :-

1 ) Yes I have had an ablation ; some people on here have needed several. I dld a fair bit of "asking around" before deciding on who should do it as I wanted someone who has done lots of ablations and is considered to be an expert in the field.

What was it like ? I don't know really because I opted to have a general anaesthetic. I was asked if I wanted it done while conscious but, as some people feel discomfort , I took the coward's way and the last thing I remember was talking to a pretty female anaesthetist before I entered la-la land.

The procedure in my case lasted 45 mins . As I woke up apparently the first thing I said was " Was it successful ? " . It was like winning the lottery when the Dr said " Yes , you are in normal sinus rhythm now ! "

I was lucky. a single ablation for me was a COMPLETE cure . I stopped taking warfarin and all other drugs and have had no heart rhythm problems since that day which was over 3 years ago.

There are no guarantees that your experiences will be like mine but I hope that they are.

I do not recall having any pain whatsoever and, apart from having to lie fairly stationary for a few hours immediately after the op, my recovery was immediate. I returned home next morning and started to lead a normal life .

2) Yes I have taken verapamil ( before the ablation )and I found it to be a very effective drug. It lowered my tachycardia and again I was lucky as I did not have any side-effects. The main reason that I decided to have an ablation was that I didn't want to be taking drugs for life

It sounds as though you may be having side-effects, some people do. The dizziness may clear up after a few days. if it doesn't verapamil may simply not be right for you

Best of luck, and let us know how you get on

Ian

You know you're wired when...

You run like the bionic woman.

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