Afib, PAC's and Ablation

[Dave0341]

This is less of a question and more of a statement to perhaps help other people who are in my situation.  I am currently 29 years old but I started having problems with atria fibrillation when I was 28.  I first noticed it after a night of hard drinking, but I converted soon after.  This happened a few more times, and I didn't think much of it, I just assumed I was hung over.  I noticed I would wake up and my heart would be racing and I would be light headed.   Then one morning I woke up (I had not been drinking) and my heart was racing and I felt worse this time, so we called an ambulance, but by the time they got to my house I had converted, so they assumed it was nothing.  Several months went by and I had an even worse episode, this time the paramedics caught the afib.  I had a heart rate of about 280 bpm and was having a ventricular response of PVC's and Vtach.  They gave me intravenous cardizem, and I converted as soon as they got me to the hospital.

While I was at the hospital, the cardiologist had me do perform a few tests particularly looking for WPW, but did not see the typical indicators such as the delta wave.  He sent me to another hospital that has a team of electrophysiologists.  They performed an EP study to look for a cause particularly WPW and as they suspected there is no WPW.  The doctor prescribed me cardizem for the pill in the pocket method.  Over the course of the next 4 months I had gone into afib about 6 or 7 more times, but converted within about 2 hours.  I noticed that I was having palpitations that felt like skipped beats, and they became much more frequent.  In fact after a while this concerned me more than the afib because of how often they occurred and how they made me feel.  I thought they were PVC's but couldn't be sure.  I wore a 24 hour monitor, but didn't catch them, but did catch another episode of afib that lasted a while longer than normal.  My doctor told me I could go on meds, but I refused, so she scheduled me for an ablation.  In the meantime I wore an event monitor to catch the ectopic beats, which turned out to be APC's aka PAC's.  Things started to make sense because I felt as though the APC's would sometimes trigger my afib particularly if I were having a bunch of APC's and I would sleep on my left side.

Anyhow, I had the ablation a few weeks ago and my doctor burned several spots in my left atrium.  They put me on Pradaxa, which I am still on but will hopefully come off of soon.  I must say that the procedure was far more effective that I had expected.  I am still cautiously optimistic about the long term, but as of right now three weeks after the procedure, I am afib free and virtually APC free.  I had a few APC's the week after the procedure, but ever since I can barely recall having even one.  Prior to the procedure, I was so conditioned that I could predict when I was going to have a palpitation or a run of palpitations or even afib just by how I would be feeling.  The week after the procedure I would have the same feeling and would be expecting something to happen, but nothing did kind of like lighting a firework and expecting an explosion but nothing happens.

Hope this is helpful.

[Carey01]

I am the EXACT same way.  the thought of the procedure causes me to get very upset and get skipped heartbeats.  I constantly wonder how I may get through a procedure like thta if I ultimatley need it.  

[justanumber]

for some,an ablation would be no good. i get atrial fibrillation because of anxiety/stress/depression and high blood pressure. there are no electrical problems in my heart. i would never be able to handle an ablation because i am so anxious. i was reading about someone having an ablation for wpw syndrome and i actually started to feel nauseous when the person was describing what was happening.

[DeltaDawn23]

Thank you for the informative post I m so glad this had a good outcome for you.  I have Afib, but it is controlled pretty much by meds.  Success stories like this make me consider an ablation in the future if needed.  Thanks again for sharing.