Conscious Endocardial Ablation

So, just had my 4th ablation performed Thursday. EP told me good news and bad news. They had seen these vtach's before, but didn't fix them because they only occur when I was awake. So, this ablation was done fully awake, only pain control was local at the catheter sites and Tylenol.

Got me on the table and prepped me for the first test. Then they hit me with Isoprenaline to stimulate vtach. First started low, 1 Mcg, ramped it to 4 mcg, 170 bpm vtach started and ICD paced me out. Now that they had seen the vtach, time for the catheters, all 7 of them. this took around 50 minutes. Inserting the sheaths wasn't to bad, the catheters were a little weird feeling, hurt a little but not a lot. Now it was time to get to work (my ICD is also disabled at this point), so went back on 4 mcg of Isoprenaline (heart was beating hard enough to shake me on the table, by the way), vtach started, mapped for almost 10 minutes then the first ablation started. He burned for around 2-3 minutes, and the vtach stopped. I was thinking to myself, this isn't to bad..... Then the stimulations started, in rapid succession until another vtach stuck at around 220 bpm. Again, mapping took around 10 minutes, then the ablation started. This time it took 6-10 minutes of burning, with the probe moving around, and it hurt this time. Felt like I had swallowed lava....
Needless to say it went on like this for a while. They swapped to the right side through an arterial catheter and proceeded to burn on the other side of my heart.
So, 7 hrs awake on the table, 6 of them being mapped/ablated, and probably 3-4 of them on 4 mcg of Isoprenaline with my heart beating hard enough to shake me on the table. He wasn't able to induce any sustained vtachs at that point, but still wanted to clean up some PCV's, so I gave up and they knocked me out for another 2 hrs to finish up.

Needless to say I really don't want to ever do that again, but so far so good.

1 Comments

Yikes!!!

by Tick-tock - 2014-05-26 11:05:25

First off, so sorry you had to go through that!!!! Sounds like a torture chamber! I recently had an ablation;however' I was knocked out thank god!!! Here, I was upset I couldn't have any happy juice prior because I hate being alert in the OR on the table. Usually they give something prior to getting wheeled into the OR, but with arrhythmia issues, they can not. It does not give an accurate reading with certain drugs in your system. You are a trooper to tolerating that for 6 hours. I guess a small price to pay if it works. Hope you continue on you journey of heart healthy, and that you never have to go through that again!

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