Oct 20, 2012 - comments
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It is 4 days since I had my ablation and I am disappointed that i am not bursting with energy.
I feel very fatigued and a bit depressed today.
The morning after the procedure I felt happy even though my leg was stiff and I was rather slow.
That day my husband and I had a long car trip ( over 3 hours) to travel from the Hamilton, where my abaltion was performed to my hometown.
I felt quite lively when we got home. I pottered around and did a few things but later in the evening I felt very shaky and then experienced a fast heartbeat.
My husband called the ambulance and I went to the Emergency Department of our local hospital. My heart settled down again but they kept me there and I was in the emrgency department unable to sleep until 5.00am in the morning when they transferred me to a ward. While I was in hospital they did more ECGs, blood tests, monitored my blood pressure, oxygen, took blood samples and had me on a halter for about 6 hours.
I saw 2 cardiologists.
One said my admission ECG looked a little bit different to norm and he wondered if there were some singed cells that had woken back up.
He was not my on duty cardiologist, so really just checked as a courtesy because he diagnosed my WPW 7 years ago. He also referred me for the ablation a month ago, after a bout of fast atrial fibrillation that lasted about 4 hours with my heartrate up to 300 beats pm, but mostly well over 200 bpm.
The on- duty cardiologist checked the pressure in my neck and then did an echocardiogram with a portable machine.
He said everything looked fine and my heartbeat was steady. He said to remember that I'd had catheters and burning in my heart and it needed time to recover.
My blood pressure and heart rate were back to normal. At lunchtime I was allowed out.
But I don't feel great. I often feel a bit shaky and as if I've drunk a huge pot of strong coffee.
Yesterday I felt a bit better. I rested all day but I had a late night and today I just feel tired. I don't even want to do anything much.
My leg is getting more comfortable. I have some burning in the heart area and lots of aches in my ribs, tender places in my stomach.
I feel quite lonely because all the things I've read in my info leaflets and online about the procedure say that people recover quickly.
I'd really like to know if what i am experiencing is normal. The Drs just said it might take a while to settle down.
The ablation was on the left side of my heart. I don't know how many burns it took but i know it was a few.
Afterwards I had a small bleed when I was finally raised up enough to eat some dinner. I had been raised very gradually, bit by bit , over time, at the end of the 4 hours recovery flat on my back.
When the nurse pressed on the bleed in my groin to stop the bleed she got the vagus nerve and i fainted. My husband told me that my heart rate went down to zero.
The nurses put a drug into my line and I revived.
I had very low blood pressure and was dehydrated due to being the last patient of the day and going without food or liquid for more than 15 hours.
Maybe these factors are affecting my rate of recovery.
I would be very grateful if anyone would let me know if they had similar experiences of slower than expected recovery.
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