Atrial Fibrillation, Ablation (1 Viewer)

As far back as i can remember in my life i always had a heart beat that would "skip" a beat, or "flutter" for 5-10 seconds at a time.  Sometimes my breath was taken away and i got light headed but i thought that was due to exerction and it always went back to normal.  Im 6'-3" and 200 pounds and I am in decent shape for a 47 year old.  No high blood pressure, diabeties, high cholestorol or any of that nature.  I do have sleep apnea. 

So back in January of this year I am sitting on the couch at 10:30 at night and my heart just takes off.  Normal resting rate for me is 55-60 beats per minute and it felt like my heart was going to jump out my chest.  I felt light headed, it was hard to breath and catch my breath as i went upstairs to sleep it off.  I figured this was just a bigger, slightly longer episode than I have experienced in the past.  No stress in the days leading up to that night either.  Woke up next morning and it was still going and that was at 6:00 am and told the wife to get the BP cuff and check me out.  I never to do this and she jumps into panic mode right away.  Put her ear to my chest and is very worried, and frankly I am worried as well, after all i should have slept this one off.  Blood pressure is normal.

We pack the kids in the car and head to the ER, where my wife is an HR manager, and check in and I almost pass out in the admitting chair so I am hustled back into a room and from nowhere I am surrounded by 5-6 nurses and 2 Drs.  they push my wife out into the hallway and are asking her questions and I can see she is breaking down.  I get the EKG and they confirmed it was Atrial Fibrillation and my heart was up over 180 BPM.  They push some drugs into me and luckily i convert back on my own, so i do not gett he paddles and get shocked.

Follow up visit with a cardiologist at the hospital that specializes in heart cases and I am prescribed meds which should help and keep it in check.  Everyone else in my life is asking about getting an ablation done.  Im just going with what the Dr says at this point.  I still was feeling little quivers every so often but not as much as before.  I have had about 5 incidents in 6 months and my Dr, who went out on a disability leave himself, but I met with others in the office, finally said that he was going to schedule me for an ablation before I could even argue for it myself. 

So this past Wednesday morning I had it performed on me and by all accounts it was successful.  Easy recovery period, I was out the same day.  I was prone on the couch for about 2 days for the incisions to heal, but by Friday I ready to get back out and about.  Yes it was tiring and hurt as it felt like i had a groin pull but I was up and around. 

I had the Catheter ablation , also called radiofrequency or pulmonary vein ablation, is nonsurgical and is the least invasive. Your doctor inserts a thin, flexible tube in a blood vessel in your leg or neck. (they went through my groin)  Then they guide it to your heart. Your doctor uses either heat, cold, or radio energy to scar tissue inside your heart, in the location where the irregular beats are triggered. The treated tissue helps to stop your irregular heartbeat.  Turns out I had a birth defect of one of my veins in my heart didn't mature and the other one grew larger to compensate for it, and I also had an extra packet of nerves that were misfiring and that was most likely the cause of my condition.  Genetics..

Anyone else here have A-Fib, and have had an ablation? 

See afib frequently in my job (ICU nurse). Very common, usually treatable, sometimes (as in your case) reversible.

Several in my family.  My aunt, and uncle both just the typical AFib and ablation...and have been doing fine.

My brother was a bit worse...he apparently already had the AFib going on...but got sick pretty bad once and due to whatever virus it was...ended up with an enlarged heart and congestive heart failure to go with it.  So he had the ablation along with a device implanted near his shoulder that monitors his heart and will beep and shock him if necessary.  Been quite a change for him.  Massive diet and can't do quite as many strenuous things as before.  Didn't help him that he has been doing stand up comedy and bartending and keeps late hours.  But so far...he has learned to live with it.

My ex-wife had this done probably 10 or more years ago.  The way they dumbed it down for us, it's an electrical thing.... like an electrical short-circuit in the heart and the ablation procedure just breaks the circuit so there is no short. 

I'm getting an ablation done to my back at some point soon.  The RFA (radio frequency ablation) procedure is one to (hopefully) kill the nerves that can cause pain in the back and sciatica down the legs.

A little info for the OP and anyone else interested. Although not a doctor, this is my understanding/experience with the condition.   l had Atrial flutter (right side) and an atrial ablation 8 years ago. Was expected to eventually develop afib (left side) which I have had a few occurrences of lasting 30-60 minutes over the past couple years but only recently caught it on EKG. No real symptoms except for the irregular beat.  I had an afib ablation two weeks ago by same doctor that did my first ablation. Very straight forward no issues - one night in the hospital, two good days of taking it easy and 7 days of not lifting anything over 10 pounds (to let groin heal). Watched just about every hour of the British Open. Two tiny incision marks (less than a centimeter) where they enter your veins in groin which heal quickly. No sutures.  Most common process is creating scar tissue in the heart around where pulmonary veins enter. This is all I needed. Sometimes they may need to do more.  Afib begats afib. If not fixed, the heart muscles slowly transform themselves to try to correct the abnormal rhythm so it will tend to get worse over time.  Prescriptions may control it but eventually the prescriptions become ineffective. Can either take prescription regularly or "pill in the pocket" for when an episode occurs.  Episodes of Afib are generally not too serious (although kind of scary) unless you encounter symptoms like the OP (unless they continue for several hours/days or you never get back into normal sinus rhythm). Risk of stroke usually not an issue until you have been in continuous afib for 3+ days, unless you have some high risk factors.  Anyone smoking should quit now. I never smoked but it is the single most harmful thing you can do to the heart as it restricts the vessels.

Austin, TX has become a center of excellence around heart arrhythmia. St. Jude Medical and Medtronic (both headquartered in Twin Cities) are key providers of ablation equipment. St. Jude Medical has their marketing, training, sales in Austin.  (my daughter works at St. Jude Medical). People come from all over the world to have ablations performed by Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia.  

If anyone is having heart rhythm issues you should see an EP (electrophysiologists) which is a cardiology specialty. I never heard of an EP until I encountered my flutter 8 years ago.  Generally, the earlier you correct it (by ablation) the easier and more successful the procedure. Occasionally you may need a followup procedure.

I am 41 years of age and have been dealing with something similar to this for nearly my entire life. First time i had an 'episode' my heart did the flutter thing and then it would race i was around 15 years old. Anyway the first time it happened i was raced to an ER by my dad i thought i was having a heart attack or something. Well that small town doc diagnosed me with mytral valve prolapse. So we go to the big city a childrens hospital i wear a monitor for two days and so the doc there said i do not have the prolapse and said i was misdiagnosed.

Anyway i deal with this for years and nearly every time i got thrown into anxiety so the ER said i was having xaniety attacks but i knew it was more. Finally around age 30 i go into a cardiologist they do a full scan put me through a stress test the whole nine yards they couldn't find anything and told me i had high cholesterol. Well luckily i had already heard from a couple family members not to take lipitor due to it causing muscle and joint pain so i had to look at alternatives.

Well i got online and did research and ended up buying magnesium and fish oil and i heard the two were very good for your heart and help with cholesterol. Well the combo worked as my numbers went down but the thing that really made me happy was it cut way down on these episodes. I went from having several a week to only having two or three a year and i was glad because there are people that experience these things often and its hell to live with.