rfreeze,

Wow, sounds like your procedure will be state of the art. I thought the pressure sensitive catheters were still in the clinical trial stage. I heard that was the next up and coming thing studied to be used in ablations.

I'm unfamiliar with the stereotaxis system you are referring to. Will that mean you don't need the radioactive fluroscopy?

How did you decide to do RF vs cryo? I'm still undecided. Mine is next month.

so hope this works out for you and you get some good answers soon......no advice from me as I'm so new at this, but am wishing all the best for you!

I hope that you are feeling better. I am glad to see that even though you had this happen, you are keeping a positive attitude and are not regretting your decision to have the ablation. Attitude is everything! Hopefully, you will stay in NSR and your breathing will improve day by day. Keep us posted. We care!

Shantima, how are you doing now?

I am so sorry! I hope that in time you will start to feel better! My thoughts and prayers are with you! Stay positive!

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.
My breathing has not improved much and yesterday I had an afib episode. Lasted about 2 hours then converted back to normal rythym.
Trying to stay positive. My Drs have been following closely and I'm hopng this is just part of the healing process. .

Im sorry that you're not feeling much better. Afib episodes are not uncommon during the healing process.Hopefully things will begin to improve for you. My thoughts and well wishes go out to you. Tkae care.
Janet

Johns Hopkins is a dangerous teaching hospital. I am not surprised at all at the complications.

Wow, that's scary to hear, Dan.

Dan, I would be interested in why you think Johns Hopkins is a dangerous teaching hospital. Personally I think all hospitals are dangerous but I'm glad they're there when I need them.

Dan,
Are you saying Johns Hopkins allows their residents/fellows to do all the procedures?

heart, I was given a choice. I could have one of the fellows do it fairly soon or I could wait 3 months and Dr Calkins would do it himself. He wanted me to be on amiodarone before he did it anyway. He feels you have less side effects afterwords. By the time I went for the ablation I was in sinus rythym for the first time in one and a half years.

shantima,

Good you waited to have Dr. Calkins do it instead of a fellow. Just hope your complications go away with time.

Are you still on amiodarone?

Johns Hopkins is a teaching hospital and they routinely use fellows, students and trainees to do their procedures -- and they are definitely NOT upfront about that.

And I would not trust Hugh Calkins to perform any procedure on me. He is a dangerous, reckless and incompetent physician -- all of which is fully documented here: http://collateral-damage.net

Dear Shantima, I am so sorry to hear of your problem. I hope that you are somewhat better. Looks like your PNI occurred 3 weeks ago. "Short-term outcomes from published studies appear favorable with 81% of patients with PNI having a complete recovery after 7 7 months." This from the founder of Ablation, Michel Haissaguerre, MD, et al:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1764817/

I was wondering why you titled your post "ablation side effect", since the above linked article calls it a well documented and avoidable adverse event.

Since your paralysis is in the right hemidiaphragm, the injury is to the right phrenic nerve, and there are several places where that injury can occur. The right phrenic nerve "passes close to the junction of the left atrium to the right superior pulmonary vein (RSPV). Sanchez-Quintana et al. [10] found that the anterior wall of the RSPV is