Has anyone had pulmonary vein ablation for afib?

If so was it successful?
Are you able to wean yourself off bet blockers?

3 Comments

Interesting

by ElectricFrank - 2008-09-01 06:09:42

I learn something new from your question. I hadn't heard of pulmonary vein ablation so looked it up on Google. Cleveland Heart Hospital has a good description of the procedure. From their statistics it seems that it is quite successful. They define success as not requiring meds after about 3 months.
From the description of the procedure it is not one to be taken lightly. I would certainly require it to be done at a facility like Cleveland that has a lot of experiece.

frank

YES

by pete - 2008-09-02 03:09:23

I have AFIB but I was not given a pulmonary vein ablation. I know 2 people aged abuot 50 and 60 who have had a pulmonary ablation for AFIB and it resulted in a complete cure for AFIB. You need a brilliant very experienced EP to have any real chance of success.
If you have got 15000 dollars to spend your best bet is to go to the Hospital in Bordeaux, France. There is the most successful team on planet earth to carry out this complex proceedure. They are getting excellent results.
I know of one patient who had 3 of these treatments but none of them worked. He went to Bordeaux and was cured with one proceedure. I have a AV node ablation and a biphase cardiac resynchronisation pacemaker. Not as good as a complete cure which a pulmonary vein ablation can offer. Cheers pete

a-fib.com

by sailingez - 2008-09-02 05:09:30

There is a great website called a-fib.com. Very informative with info from patients. All types of references on it to. I went there first because one doc was talking about ablation then the next (EP this time) said pm. Both that site and this site have been a wealth of information.

Read all the stories and do like I did...I called up John Hopkins hospital and talked to one of their nurses. She spent 45 min on the phone with me going over alot of information that had me confused. She's listed in the experience and I apologize I don't remember her name. I have an appt tomorrow with Dr Berger to discuss PM and ablation for my left bundle branch block and afib problems.

There are several different types of ablation and you need to read up on them. I'll report back with what I find out.

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