ablation

Advice

by AgentX86 - 2018-09-27 21:52:59

Number 1:  Get rid of the Ameoderone!  That stuff is toxic as hell. At your age it's crazy to use it more than a few months.  You're right to find another solution.

It would be good to know more about you.  Why the pacemaker? Are you proximal? Persistent? Chronic?  The earlier you  get an ablation, the better your chances of it helping are.  If you have chronic afib, your chances of ever getting rid of it are close to zero.

In any case, don't waste your time and risk complications with a local, small-town quack. You only get a few of chances at this. Ablations, by their very design, cause damage to the heart (scar tissue).  You don't want to go through this too many times.  Find a well known and highly recommended EP, who works in a large teaching hospital, who does at least 100 ablations a year. This is an absolute must if you've been in AF for any period of time.

this is all scaring me

by jessie - 2018-09-27 22:10:35

no pulse no heartbeat...what next? i still wake up in the night and in a panic attack have to find my pulse. it may be from a recurrent dream my heart will stop. i dont know.please dont scare me with things...i am 77 relatively calm after all these years...the dreams had stopped...help....

55 is awfully young...

by donr - 2018-09-27 23:29:09

...,to be on Amiodarone!  Agent was extremely polite about it.  That stuff is dfangerous - many irreversible side effects, & has an extremely long half life - meaning it takes a LOOOOOOOng time for the body to get rid of it.  It is soluble in body fat, so there is a whopping bunch of it storeed in your cells.  Can take narly 300 days to cleanse the body fat of the stuff, meanwhile it is still floating around in your bloodstream. (Yes, I said three hundred days.)

You are not too far from Mayo in MN.  try them for an opinion & potential ablation performance location.

Donr

I've done it

by atiras - 2018-09-29 14:30:54

Amiodarone is horrible vile awful stuff -- my cardiolist had to twist my arm very hard to persude me to try it as a last (medical) resort -- I'd worked my way through the drug options in 15 years with AF. And then Amiodarone  didn't work, so I ditched it pretty damn quick and went back to Digoxin alone -- but at 60 I wasn't ready to turn into a sedentary old lady (althpugh at least I could go out during the day without risk -- my cardiologist used to refer to Amoidaron as the 'vampire drug'. So I found a new cardiologist at a specialist Heart Institute about 70 miles from,me.

With long-standing persistent AF (four years and rising), I'm not a candidate for simple ablation (put bluntly, said my EP, we'll all be wasting our time) -- so I had a PM put in roughly 3 weeks ago, and will be getting an AV node ablation in another roughly 3 weeks.  At which point I will be able to ditch the Digoxin but not the rivaroxaban (blood thinner) becase the AV ablation/PM doesn't cure the AF, it just stops the irregular/fast heartbeat affecting my ability to live my daily life.  Because I will still have AF, I'm still at risk of a stroke, hence the rivaroxaban for the rest of my life.

You don't say what sort of ablation is being considered -- one to try to cure the AF or an AV node ablation like I shall be having?

atrias

by AgentX86 - 2018-09-29 21:17:14

Been down the road you're on.  I had three unsucessful ablations, after an unsucessful Maze (really, the cause of the problem).  I had an AV ablation in February and I'm still on metoprolol and Eliquis but I'll be asking my cardiologist if I can ditch them soon.  When I had the CABG/Maze, they also sealed off my LAA, so the clotting issue should be taken care of.  Eliquis isn't causing me any problems but I'd prefer not to be on it.

BTW, I'm in Aflutter 100% of the time, now, but after the AV ablation, I don't feel it.  Of course the atria aren't doing anything, either. That's part of the deal.

Ablation

by pogerm1 - 2018-09-30 17:32:12

AgentX86

When your LAA was sealed off did you have a Watchman device put in, if you didn't then you will have to be on blood thinners for life, check it out.

Ablation

by pogerm1 - 2018-09-30 17:40:23

I agree about Amiodrone that is the med. of last resort, it is bad.  If you get an ablation, look for someone who has done many ablations, Dr Natalie of St. Davids in Texas is doing hundreds, he is tops in the field, if I were to get an ablation that is who I would go to.  there is a site called AFIBBERS. Org.  that is all about Afib, it is a very informative site.

LAA

by AgentX86 - 2018-09-30 20:56:54

No, I don't have a Watchman.  I had it surgically sealed (not sure if it was sutured closed or a "clip" was used - they've told me both) when I had the CABG/Maze surgery.  They have some really good pictures of it from the  several TEEs I've had, so whatever it is, it's there.  ;-)

ablation for afib

by islandgirl - 2018-10-02 16:47:45

I had a successful ablation for afib and other arrhythmias in Nov 2017.  Go to a good EP with experience.  Make sure the EP is a member of the heart rhythm association.  At one of the recent heart rhythm meetings before my ablation, there was new information on to areas to ablate for a better outcome.