I have 2 basic questions.
1a. I am moving from Connecticut (NYC area) to Houston. I have HCM, and I have atrial arrythmias right now. I was wondering wether it was more important to have an HCM specialist for my disease or an EP with experience with ablations?
1b. Based on that answer, I was wondering if you could recomend a good HCM cardiologist or good aflutter/afib arrythmia EP in Houston (or even Austin or Dallas, I would consider the drive). Please let me know. Like most, I don't want your average Dr, I want the best in that area.
2a. I had afib. I did endoscopic ablation in NYC with Johanathan Steinberg, little success, some natural cardioversion, but only after months of being in it. He said there was a lot of scarring and foci. I had thorocascopic ablation with Li Poa in CT. He said in the lab it looked like complete success, he was able to isolate almost everything, however, I am now having aflutter, and EKGs suggest it is still coming from left atrium. There is progress, I cardiovert now after about only 7 or 8 hours in it. And it only happens like once every few weeks. However, I get pretty sick w/HCM and 125bpm. Poa feels there might be areas left to ablate, but would first rather lower my rate with cardizem and atenol to diminish the effects of aflutter, before sending me back to an EP for another endoscopic ablation. I will see how this plays out. My question for the future is can someone eventually ablate everything? Or am I going to have to live w/aflutter? Have an open heart maze? Have a synus node ablation? Who in the country can help?
2b. Could raising my pace rate on my ICD from 60 bpm to something like 75 help prevent the aflutter? What about decreasing my meds? Or changing from tykosin to amioderone? Are any of these treatments worth mentioning to my doctor to help prevent the aflutter in the mean time?