Hooray!!! So happy for you ecofr!! What wonderful news! A great big caesar salad is in order :) Enjoy and congratulations!!

Congrats! Hopefully, I'll be writing the same message in a few months!

congratulations, it must be a lovely feeling!

Hip, hip hooray! What wonderful news! Thanks for sharing.

That's great congratulations and enjoy. ;)

Happy news indeed!
D.

We are twins. I'm now on aspirin myself and metroprolol and doing great. What a gift, huh?

You know I am very Happy for you!!!!! I am Wishing you many Great Hiking days! I wonder if you are taking Metoprolol for blood pressure?

Mo, Yogacat.
I am taking Metoprolol for rhythm control, although my heart rate is low 50-60. I'm taking Losartan for BP.

I am on metropolol for rate control and Losartin for BP. My successful ablation was October 2011. I thought I would be off heart meds, but I had a high heart rate after the ablation and any kind of exertion would put it over 100. I did read that long term use of Sotolol can cause that and I was on it for about 3 years.

I am off a blood thinner but I keep rethinking that. I did have a stroke 3 years ago. I thought I would be off medications if an ablation worked, but it always seems to be something.

Twinsisters: Are you taking 325 mg aspirin? I know it is not as effective as Coumadin, but... now that I have afib, even if an ablation was successful, at a minimum (me personally) I would take aspirin and take at least one trip to Lourdes, or you can view it 24/7 at: http://www.lourdes-france.org/index.php?contexte=en&id=405 . :-) -petey

Dr Steinberg told me anybody who tells me I can com off blood thinners after an ablation is giving dangerous advice.
Dr Reddy said with careful monitoring and no afib maybe after a year......
I had a TIA in September

Congrats on such good news!! I was on Pradaxa and TIkosyn and SO glad to get off both.

I like your comment about getting smashed on a huge salad!! LOL

McHale: I would be cautious with getting off anticoagulants. So I agree with your doctor based on what I have read from the best sources. I would temper the celebration with caution. I predict there will be a market for safer post ablation "watered down" anticoagulants. There must be a very safe level that minimizes risk and knocks down stroke risk and/or severity. petey

Petey,
my EP told me to stop thinners after a 2-week, 24/24 monitoring with a Zio-patch. Zio patch is a 2- by 5-inch adhesive bandage monitor that you stick to the chest. After a short time you forget you have it on. You can take showers with the patch on. After 2 weeks you mail it in a prepaid envelope to the Zio-patch company, that analyzes it and sends a detailed report to your EP. I got a copy of the report, all the EP did was to outline the highlights to me. It indicated 0 Afib and few unusual episodes with charts, all irrelevant,
I agree with you about the dangers of asymptomatic Afib after an apparently successful ablation. But thinners present their own long term risks (check Google), although these are outweighed by stroke dangers for patients with Chads >= 2.
And even Chads=2 people are much more likely to take thinners unnecessarily than to have a stroke.
Assuming I stay asymptomatic, I plan to have a 2-week run with Zio-patch 2 months after the previous one. It seems to me this gives me good insurance against strokes without the dangers of long term usage of thinners. This plan is also cost effective, 2 weeks of Zio-patch is cheaper than 2 months of Pradaxa or Xarelto.
So for me (and maybe for many people who had apparently successful ablations) Zio-patch is a better alternative than thinners.
What do you think?