In 2006 I had an ablation for atrial flutter, and after about 90 days things were about the same as before the ablation. My EP told me that as long as the episodes didn't last too long, not much to worry about. So, over the years I had mild to moderate episodes every few weeks usually lasting less than 30 minutes. But starting late last fall, the episodes were becoming stronger, more frequent, and lasting longer (usually about an hour). A few weeks ago I was at my regular physician for a routine follow-up to an annual physical, and she had a strange expression when she listened to my heart. I told her I was just having palpitations, had been having them for about 30 minutes and they would probably last about 30 minutes more, no biggie. She suggested I have an EKG right then, joking that rarely do patients actually have such symptoms in a doctor's office. She was quite concerned by the EKG, told me this wasn't atrial flutter but atrial fib, faxed the EKG to a cardiologist. The cardiologist told me to go to the ER immediately, and I shouldn't even drive myself.

Long story short, I was hospitalized while they tried to get my afib under control. I kept going in/out about 50/50 of the time. They tried Flecainide which didn't work. I ended up on on Metoptolol (25mg 2/day), Tikosyn (250mg 2/day) and Xarelto (20mg). I have been out of the hospital for a week, and today I had afib one time for 4 hours, one time for 1.5 hours, and another time for 1 hour. I talked to my EP's assistant today who said just document this, that I'm still new to these meds, but not to worry about it and will discuss at my follow-up appointment in three weeks.

So I'm not sure what I should expect. They certainly loaded me up with all the possible meds at the hospital! Am I being unrealistic to expect to be a little more in rhythm than this with all these meds? Do you find that when you have been on such meds as these they take a while to work? I'm not looking for 100% but to be honest I am a bit discouraged with these results. Any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated.