Catheter Ablation for SVT - any success stories as I'm so scared?

[ReggieEve]

Hi, I'm a 32 year old female, diagnosed with SVT in December 2011. I saw an Electrophysiologist in March and he advised that I have a Catheter Ablation due to possibly having AVRNT or a concealed accessory pathway...
I am absolutely dreading it to say the least. I understand that I may be sedated and I have never experienced that before. I don't want to be awake and know what they are doing as the whole thing freaks me out. I am als petrified that something will go wrong. Can anybody share anything that will make me feel a little better? I know I need to have it done as I am living with constant fear of the SVT. Many thanks :-)

[msmessy]

So I had my ablation yesterday and was so scared I was a crying wreck!
I got into lab and my consultant settled me down,  then when I was ready the nurse sedated me and I went to sleep.
Next thing I know I woke up on the ward!
Im a bit sore but nothing a bit of codiene cant fix.
I really. Needn't have worried! It really isn't that bad!
I had my op at QE in Birmingham uk and they were fantastic!
Good luck guys!!!!

[billymc10583]

My  16 year old son had SVT ablation yesterday. He thought he would be asleep but the DR said they had better success rates finding the location of the problem if he was awake. He went into surgery about 10:15 am and within an hour they came out and said they were able to replicate an episode. He was fortunate his issue was in an area of the heart where they felt comfortable to burn rather than freeze (better long term success rate) he was done and in recovery by 1:30pm. He was uncomfortable in the areas where they went in (neck and groin) but they gave him 1 milligram or morphine and he rested comfortably all afternoon and was pain free by 6pm when he went to his room.. They kept him overnight, he slept on and off. came home today at 10:00am. and is now resting comfortably in my basement playing x box. No pain or complaining...

[charlottep117]

I had catheter ablation on Tuesday... well, kind of.

I had the catheters put in and then they sped my heart up to see where the problem is... they found the problem is in the middle of my heart so they decided not to do anything about it as its too dangerous and could leave me with a pacemaker if they mess it up.

After an hour of checking that was the only problem the catheters were taken out and I was returned to the ward. I had a lot less sedation that a normal ablation as they didnt have to ablate anything so I could feel everything that was going on and it hurt a fair amount - I could have asked for some more sedation but decided against it.

When I came back into recovery I was told to lie flat for a while, which I did, then when they went to get me up and walking I unfortunatly had a re-bleed from my artery... by far the worst bit of the whole procedure, and due to this I now have a big bruise on my leg!

Its not as bad as you think though, I was scared before hand but was ok in the end.

[Jannie411]

Thanks for your kind note.  I'm glad to have been able to help.  If you have any questions either before or after the procedure, don't hesitate to contact me.  Take care and I will check in with you via MedHelp message sometime next week.

[maryamy1980]

I am scheduled for my ablation at Penn in a few days (4/8/13), so reading all of these comments has made me feel a lot better. I'm a 32 yr old female who is pretty much healthy otherwise, but the whole idea of the procedure has been pretty much freaking me out.

[littlegreenman1]

Don't panic. It's consignment to failure.
If your doc gives you 95% chance of success be 95% pumped you'll be fixed and 5% worried that the status quo will be.