As some of you might remember from my past postings, I was lucky enough to get enrolled in the Cardiofocus Laser Balloon Ablation study conducted by Dr. Hugh Calkins at Johns Hopkins. 2 January 2013 I had my ablation, and today I had my 12 month follow up. First let me just say that I have determined that before my next visit, I MUST ask Petey to come with me, cuz I seemed to forget the 100 questions that I intended to ask when I went into the meeting. Sad part is, this time I even wrote all the questions down! But you get in, start chatting...oh well. My personal news is that I am considered a roaring success. No afib for one year..NONE. Right after the ablation I had accelerated heart rates, some up to 155 BPM, but none were afib. I had them longer than I should have, due to the fact that Mom got sick in May and I spent several months with her in the hospital. So I failed to get back into the proper exercise regimen, and my resting HR was actually CLIMBING instead of going down. At one point it got up to 85 resting, and would shoot up with any sort of exertion. In a way it was lucky that I got the Metabolic Syndrome diagnosis in August, as this forced me to start back into exercise on a regular basis. Dr. Calkins told me to continue exercising to deal with the Syndrome, and if I did, it shouldn't adversely affect the ablation (he has previously published that obesity DOES adversely affect the success rate). Some bad news. Like a few others I have seen on posts in this and the stopafib site, post ablation I and others have had gastrointestinal distress. Dr. Calkins indicated that sometimes the nerves along the esophagus can be injured during an ablation, and gas and bloating can result. So, something else to consider before deciding upon ablation. I brought this up, as well as the fact that I continue to have "extra" beats, which freak me out a bit. He indicated that this is normal. Sometimes these go away, other times they remain. He indicated that my heart was still in repair mode (REALLY? A year after? So much for the 3 month blanking period!). This period a varies according to the general health of the patient. I have seen some posts where these beats stopped for people after taking magnesium or other supplements. I haven't been so lucky. I will continue to work out and hope for the best. The Cardiofocus study had 450 participants, and is now over. The official results will be published at the end of 2014 or early 2015, but Dr. Calkins indicated that the study was "highly successful."

FIRM - I told Dr. Calkins that many on this board where holding out hope that FIRM would be the answer. While he would not say anything officially about this, he seemed to indicate that the problem with this is that only a few EPs outside of Dr.Narayan are replicating his good results (he of course called him Sanjiv...small EP community). So Eric, if you are going for FIRM, you may as well go to this guy for the procedure, as he is THE best at it! Dr. Calkins seemed more enthusiastic about the Bordeaux Group advances, particularly the work of Dr. Haissaguerre (No follow up question from me, sorry).. This of course could be because he used the laser balloon on me, which is the technology they have been using in France for years with great success. I really wanted to ask him about John's post, with regard to the 90% success rates after 10 years...but forgot. I am sorry that I couldn't pass along more information...So, one year down. I sill need to lose about 20 pounds, and continue with the exercise program, but I count my blessings that I was able to get into this study, and that I was able to get one of the "rock star EPs," the brilliant Dr. Hugh Calkins.

Bill