Posted on 03/24/2012 6:02:18 PM PDT by calex59
Has anyone had, or knows someone who has had, ablation treatment for Afib?
Isn’t that what Southern women do in the morning before breakfast?
No a**hat it is a serious procedure for a serious medical problem. Got any more smart a**ed comments you want to make?
A friend had it done, and it seems to have helped. No side effects in his case. Sorry, but that’s all I know.
Is this a “clean the blood” procedure?
Nope, it requires scarring parts of the heart in order to stop Atrial Fibrillation. It has, supposedly, about a 73% success ratio. If you know what Afib is or suffer from it you would know what I am talking about.
Two of my friends have had it with great success......my other friend was a cardiovascular nurse and also thought it was a great procedure with minimal complications....go for it.....
Thanks for a serious answer. How long has it been since he had it done?
Be glad the MAZE procedure is a thing of the past.
Well I have had a few stints.
But God bless and heal you my friend.
You will make the right choice.
Yeah, the way I look at it, anything beats taking 4 or 5 drugs every day and not having them actually reduce or stop the fib. Maybe even get off of coumadin, that would be great.
There is a professional golfer named David Toms. He was playing a round in a tournament and his heart raced so badly he passed out. They life flighted him out and stabilized him. He had Afib too. They snaked the cathter in and abated the node that was firing wrong ( or near the node) and he has been fine since. Google him.
Was the MAZE a bad thing? I read a little about it but since it isn’t done any more I didn’t really get into it. Now they scar around the pulmonary arteries because apparently the stray electrical signals come from them.
It generally is very effective but like all medical procedures there is some risk (rather low risk) and no guarantee of long term success. In hands of experienced electrophysiologist (heart doc specializing in cardiac rhythm disorders) it’s very effective and if successful, it’s much preferable to taking long term blood thinners!
Calex, there a couple of problems with leaving atrial fibrillation untreated. First, the atrium is not contracting normally and this leaves blood to stagnate in it and frequently coagulate. The clots formed in this way can be ejected into the brain and cause strokes. This can be treated by anticoagulation with aspirin or other anticoagulants. Second, the failure of the atrium to contract normally in AF, can reduce cardiac output. In an otherwise healthy individual, this is not a big deal but if someone has other heart problems, as people with atrial fibrillation often do, it can reduce cardiac output to the point of causing significant symptoms. Ablation is the use of an electrical stimulus to destroy the abnormally firing pacer in the atrium that is causing atrial fibrillation. There are medications that can reduce heart rate if one has atrial fibrillation but there are not without their own problems. Ablation is generally very well tolerated and effective. I would much rather have this procedure than live with untreated atrial fibrillation.
It can have a minor impact on the performance of one valve down the line. They've been learning more about that and cardio-surgeons can take steps to minimize the problem.
My father had been at a total loss about what to do with his heart for many years. Some doctors wanted to slow it down, others wanted to speed it up, others said there was nothing short of a transplant to help out, or maybe the addition of a very complex device similar to a pacemaker but with more bells and whistles.
(SEE DICK CHENEY).
One day I discovered that a type of Bradycardia/Tachycardia is symptomatic of having one of three different alleles of a gene frequently found among Sa'ami, with one very bad version found exclusively in a small group (500) living mostly in Scandinavia. These people had a number of other alleles typically found among Sa'ami, particularly the favorite medical test group of all time, the 500 Skolt who live in Finland.
I told him to find people who were interested in eliminating an extra sinus node that fired his heart muscle up out of sequence with the other sinus node.
Almust unbelievably he found an advertisement in a local paper that said Dr. so and so and his buddies had opened up a new practice in Bloomington Indiana to treat exactly this problem.
He made an appointment with them. They took him off all medication and gave him a couple of weeks to get the aspirin and other drugs out of his system. Then, he went in for the procedure and walked out of there a new man TWO HOURS LATER.
We have improved our genealogical records immensely after that time ~ NO ONE had any knowledge of an origin in Scandinavia for any of the ancestors. Now we know it's most of them, and among the Sa'ami, not the Norse.
I"ve found distant cousins with the same problem ~ usually involving more than one member of the family, and directed them to doctors who know what to do.
This is not without risk, nor is it perfect, but it's far better than being crippled!
With the MAZE they have to cut your chest open, either a complete throacotomy or a couple of small holes. With an ablation, just a small hole in the groin and most likely only 1 day in the hospital.
I talked to a lady a couple of months ago, and she had to have it done twice. I believe this is done by catheter, so it’s not too bad to go through.
I sure understand that any medical procedure is a scary thing to go through but this will make you feel a whole lot better.....and by the way one of the guys that had this procedure is back to riding bike, hunting, water skiing.....yeah he feels good....
Thanks for the info, however, I have had Afib for years now, in fact I first had it before the ablation procedures came into being, so I know all the stuff you told me. Thanks again, and I have no bad symptoms, no dizziness, no faintness etc. but I do have to take coumadin and be tested monthly, would like to get rid of that if possible.
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