Atrial Fibrillation (AFib) Support Group
Atrial fibrillation (AF or afib) is an abnormal heart rhythm (cardiac arrhythmia) which involves the two small, upper heart chambers (the atria). Heart beats in a normal heart begin after electricity generated in the atria by the sinoatrial node spread through the heart and cause contraction of the heart muscle and pumping of blood.
Hey gang. I'm writing to you from Austin, TX where I am 3 days post my ablation with Dr. Natale. I'll be down here until Wednesday morning. Our family decided to rent a town home down here for a week so that I could properly recover.
The ablation on Thursday went about as smooth as one can go! My procedure only took 2 hours and other than a sore and dry scratchy throat and some temporary chest discomfort, I had no other issues. To date I haven't even had a single heart palpitation let alone any afib issues.
I'm still battling some minor fluid build up in my body but I'm taking Lasix and potassium for that. Other than that the throat is almost back to normal already and the chest feels perfectly fine!
I wrote a detailed post about my ablation experience on my blog if you're interested:
http://www.livingwithatrialfibrillation.com/1434/catheter-ablation-experience/
I'll be posting a lot more details, information, photos, etc. on my blog in the days and weeks to come. I just wanted to check in with everyone and let you know my first ablation (and hopefully last) has been a walk in the park so far (knock on wood).
Now it's just a matter of waiting for the blanking period to end so I can see if Dr. Natale was able to cure me after one procedure. He said my odds of being "one and done" were very high but of course he couldn't promise anything. He said my case was very straight forward and I was fortunate enough to get ahead of this and "catch it early." Note to those of you on the fence about having an ablation...do it sooner than later!! I've been battling afib for 9 years and if I had to do it all over, I would have had the ablation years ago.
At any rate, I'll keep you all posted in the days and weeks to come. I want to thank everyone here again for being so supportive and encouraging about having an ablation. I'm really hoping this procedure is a game changer for me. Only time will tell, I guess.
God Bless!
Travis
The ablation on Thursday went about as smooth as one can go! My procedure only took 2 hours and other than a sore and dry scratchy throat and some temporary chest discomfort, I had no other issues. To date I haven't even had a single heart palpitation let alone any afib issues.
I'm still battling some minor fluid build up in my body but I'm taking Lasix and potassium for that. Other than that the throat is almost back to normal already and the chest feels perfectly fine!
I wrote a detailed post about my ablation experience on my blog if you're interested:
http://www.livingwithatrialfibrillation.com/1434/catheter-ablation-experience/
I'll be posting a lot more details, information, photos, etc. on my blog in the days and weeks to come. I just wanted to check in with everyone and let you know my first ablation (and hopefully last) has been a walk in the park so far (knock on wood).
Now it's just a matter of waiting for the blanking period to end so I can see if Dr. Natale was able to cure me after one procedure. He said my odds of being "one and done" were very high but of course he couldn't promise anything. He said my case was very straight forward and I was fortunate enough to get ahead of this and "catch it early." Note to those of you on the fence about having an ablation...do it sooner than later!! I've been battling afib for 9 years and if I had to do it all over, I would have had the ablation years ago.
At any rate, I'll keep you all posted in the days and weeks to come. I want to thank everyone here again for being so supportive and encouraging about having an ablation. I'm really hoping this procedure is a game changer for me. Only time will tell, I guess.
God Bless!
Travis
As for failed cardioversion, that could be simply low levels of Magnesium. Most cardios IV into you beforehand, but not always. I would do an RCB test to see what your levels are first. Dont do a serum test as this will give you a false reading. Adequate levels of Mag increase your chance to cardio vert by 50%. Best wishes. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9588660
Hope the best for you my friend.......Tony
I found out some interesting things about Dr. Natale that I didn't know until this past week. He used to do around 550 ablations a year! And that's not a typo. He has backed down some and "only" does around 450 a year now. He has over 8,000 ablations under his belt - the most by any EP in the world by a mile. Bordeaux's two top EPs only have 10,500 ablations between the two of them!
I knew Dr. Natale was one of the most experienced EPs in the world but I had no idea he had that much experience. Luckily he's only 53 years old so hopefully he'll be around practicing for at least another decade. One he retires, it's going to be a sad day for the EP world and us afibbers. He's literally the Babe Ruth of EPs...a once in a generation professional.
Travis