<p>A friend had the cardiac ablation procedure a couple of years ago. She has not had a single episode since then.</p>
<p>The success rate is ~70% on the first try for catheter ablation. My electrophysiologist will not perform this procedure for something that happens a few times a year. Since with time it almost invariably increases in frequency and length - I’m a future candidate - when it gets to several times a month.</p>
<p>DocT, my friend went to one of the top cardiac centers in the country to have the ablation. Perhaps their success rate is higher. She had many other serious health issues and didn’t want to take the meds for atrial fibrillation.</p>
<p>Doc T, sorry your episodes are so debilitating. Tolerance depends on the rate as well as just plain differences between people. Some folks tolerate A fib quite well. Others, not at all. You are on the right drugs. Have you asked your Dr. if you can take an additional dose if the fib returns? Some of this depends on your resting heart rate and blood pressure, as both drugs decrease BP. </p>
<p>However, you need an anticoagulant! If you are not comfortable with Pradaxa, you need warfarin. There are a few others on the market. Especially as you’ll be at higher clotting risk with the long flight. I hope you’re at least taking aspirin daily. </p>
<p>Cardiac nurse here, so know a bit about it. In addition, my mom has A fib and has had a stroke while avoiding warfarin.</p>
<p>I take an aspirin but since I have a score of 2 should be on an anticoagulant. My cardiologist is really pushing pradaxa over warfarin because of the issue associated with maintaining my inr. My wife has been on warfarin for 20 years and has had all kinds of issues controlling her inr. However I’ve seen too much negative stuff about people bleeding to death because of the lack of an antidote to pradaxa. Pradaxa is supposedly significantly better at preventing strokes in people with afib. Strokes are the biggest risk for afib sufferers.</p>
<p>“DocT, my friend went to one of the top cardiac centers in the country to have the ablation. Perhaps their success rate is higher.”</p>
<p>Since the procedure is well - developed - the success rate is roughly the same for most places that have experience with the procedure. The 70% figure includes the Cleveland Clinic which is considered the gold standard in the US.</p>
<p>DocT – I see. I just wanted to share that the ablation worked for my friend. Have any of you considered it?</p>
<p>See post #22 - the procedure is not without serious risk, many times it requires more than 1 ablation and nobody is going to do an ablation until it occurs with some frequency.</p>
<p>My H needed a second ablation and things worked perfectly for 19 years. This past spring he needed a cardio conversion and so far so good.</p>
<p>I thought I had AFib, but turns out that I have some type of POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome). This was triggered by my neck surgery this past June. My heart rate rapidly jumps (40-50 beats) when I stand up, am standing still or raise my hands over my head. They say this is neurological…sure feels like a cardio problem to me!</p>
<p>Kajon is that correctible?</p>
<p>I’m really interested, because my mom was just diagnosed with Afib yesterday! so I"m looking for information.</p>
<p>My H has episodes of some kind of rapid heartbeat that is not Afib. I can’t recall the name, but it’s usually short duration, but distressing when he has one. I’ll have to ask him what it is tonight. (he’s a former doc, but does he take care of it well? no, of course not. :()</p>
<p>perhaps he has supraventricular tachycardia</p>
<p>^^ or paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia (PSVT). It is an abnormally fast heart beat, that begins and ends suddenly. While the normal resting heart rate is approximately 60-100 beats per minute, a PVST attack may cause a heart rate as fast as 160-280 beats per minute. People with PVST have attacks of tachycardia that can last anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. The abnormal heart rate originates in heart tissue other than the ventricles or lower chambers of the heart.Frequent and prolonged episodes, if not treated, can cause weakening of the heart muscle.</p>
<p>I had mine successfully treated by an ablation at Stanford.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that afib is the most difficult to treat using ablation because the source of the extra electrical signals is not localized as is the case with many other arrythmias.</p>
<p>Yeah. It’s one of those (I should know this, right?)</p>
<p>Okay, just checked with him. It’s SVTs. Not frequent enough to treat apparently, but if they got worse, it might be a reason for an ablation.</p>
<p>But beyond that, some people here who say they sometimes get a racing heart feeling, but haven’t been diagnosed, it might be that, and not afib.</p>
<p>Afib is not always a fast heartbeat but it is always an irregular heart beat which is not the case with tachycardia.</p>
<p>dstark - I think that some POTS is treatable/managable. By the way. When you hear about these kids who died of heart failure at Disney World POTS is most likely the cause). I have done Holter tests and the docs say “well, it appears that you are staying between 48 and and 135 so we are not worried. We are however concerned that on your stress test that you jumped so quickly and were slow to recover” The Neurologist says “Well Mrs. H, you don’t have the full blown syndrome and it was probably caused by damage to your vagal/vagus nerve during surgery or it is a reaction from the dexamethasone (strongest steroid given during surgery) that tends to collect in your cardiac muscle. I suggest you do isometrics in your lower legs before standing and then always stand with your legs crossed at the crotch area” Gee…can you tell I am tired of this and a wee bit frustrated??? There are many others on the internet who have had similar reactions from steroids injections and for many it seems to lessen after 9 months to a year. Fingers crossed.</p>
<p>Sorry to hijack…but thanks for listening.</p>
<p>Kajon, sounds awful. I hope u have the steroid kind so this issue lessens or goes away.</p>