How bad is my heart

[Heartandsods]

6 months ago I was told I am in A.F. I was put on Beta blockers 1.25 mg low dose and warfarin immediately then was left almost 6 months with no info about my condition obviously worried discovered a family history of heart trouble, mom had stroke at 60 major stroke at 63. I am 60. Had holter monitor on 72 hours got result that for 30 hours was in irregular heartbeats,nothing else said. Finally got to see cardiologist this week properly who said I needed cardio ablation under local anaesthetic . Only saw specialist for ten mins June when ordered holter monitor to be done. They took 9 weeks to send result of monitor. Keep cancelling my appointments. My question is how bad is my condition, am in frequent episode daily but only feel palpitations and slight pressure in heart area. They say I have paroxysmal A .F. Can anyone give advice on this.

[researcher09]

AF is classified into three stages, paroxysmal, persistent and long-term persistent.  Still being in paroxysmal is good in that your chances of having a successful ablation is significantly better than persistent (about 15% better odds) and way better than LT persistent (30%+ better).  So it is good that you are still in the earlier stage of the disease and that they caught it.  The irregular heartbeat is not life threatening.  The biggest risk is stroke which is being addressed by taking warfarin.  With a successful ablation, you can get off of all the meds.

[Heartandsods]

Thank you for replying Michelle, at moment I am having regular episodes each day, does not help that they cancelled an operation on the morning I was being booked in for it for long awaited women,s procedure Thursday this week put more pressure on my heart through stress it caused. Have had to have beta blockers increased because of it. Gynaecologist and Heart specialist should have liaised together 3 months ago when operation was booked. Anaesthetist should have seen me before the day to check on status and decide if to carry on with it but left it till the day to tell me. That's why I am worried about just how bad it is. My ablation is booked for Christmas week.

[MichelleP_3811]

I am sorry you were treated so poorly.  I highly suggest if you are waiting for results and do not get an answer in a reasonable amount of time that you contact your doctor to put yourself back on the radar.  Sounds like you fell through the cracks a bit.  Being in Afib in general itself isn't the threat. The problem with it is that when it is happening the upper chambers may be quivering and not beating proper which can cause blood to pool.  This is fine while you are in afib but can become a problem when you revert back to normal sinus rhythm and throw a clot.  It can cause a stroke and may be what happened to mother though strokes can also be caused by hemorrhages in the brain so no one but your mother's doctor can say for sure what caused hers.  In any event the threat of stroke is why you were prescribe blood thinners.  This said I am not sure how big a risk there is when your afib is irregular as opposed to fast.  I am not certain how much the heart is quivering when it is irregular as opposed to fast.  That would be a good question to ask your cardiologist since I personally don't know.  The shorter you are in afib the better but if you are in and out frequently that does put you at some risk. There is one option you can try and that is the cardiac ablation.  It is best to try it sooner rather than later because the longer a person has afib the more permanent it becomes.  The heart sort of becomes accustom to it and it becomes hard to ablate so it may be a good idea to try the ablation to see if you can be cured for good.  This said there are some on here who are in permanent afib.  It isn't necessarily a death sentence if managed properly.  Best of luck moving forward trying to get it all sorted out.  Keep us posted on how you are doing and maybe someone with afib can jump on and give more insight.