I'm glad they didn't - it would then become a commercial. Best to have something generic.

I saw it. He missed a layup also. Everything is dramatic on the show. The kids are really intense. He is probably taking Coumadin, a betablocker, a rhythm drug and Xanax or maybe some other heart drug for cholesterol (not related). The Dr scene was from the first episode.

If the Dr said take the bloodthinner and the rate control drug, it would be very boring. I don't think they would dare say Pradaxa with the advertising going on.

Did anyone watch the show before he was diagnosed? What was his lifestyle like?

I have watched the show. His lifestyle was basically what you see in these shows. He's not overly athletic. Just a man in charge of a big family.

He's on Warfarin. I thought 4 Rx's-that's a lot. Your guesses are probably right. He didn't even bother to pick them up for a week. Obviously he's not eager to try to control this. He hasn't accepted it yet.

I did think it was funny that the son asked if it's genetic before he even asked what is a fib and how serious is it?

My daughter asked the same thing. I busted out laughing because she skipped the "worried about me" part.

Ha! Funny Petey!

We need a show to have a character go thru all the angst of figuring out what to do once he/she finds out they have AF. We could really relate to this. Since here are so many suffering from this, wouldn't others be interested too? Not sexy enough I guess. ):

Actually, I was thinking the same thing... what drama:

"You have a condition with your heart (that get their attention), it is not immediately life threatening and is not a emergency like a heart attack... BUT, we have to put you on an anticoagulant right away because you will have a stroke if we don't... btw, you may have an intercranial bleed if you take one of the anticoagulants and we will have trouble adjusting it and you can't eat foods that are good for your heart and it will increase calcification of your heart and arteries OR you can take an anticoagulant that is more likely to give you a stomach bleed and we have no antidote for it... also you will have to be on a rate control medicine that will leave you tired and breathless and probably a rhythm drug that is toxic to your body, could cause a fatal arrythmia, and will probably only work for awhile at which time we will switch you to another toxic drug, then we will electrocardiovert you, which could cause a stroke immediately after, probably won't keep you in normal sinus rhythm for long unless we up your dose of the toxic drug, and if 2 or 3 of these toxic drugs don't work, we can try to perform an ablation that must be done precisely right by the doctor, could cause you some serious side effects and we don't know the long term effects of the procedure, plus you might need 2 or 3 ablations to catch all the spots, but the normal sinus rhythm might not last more than a year to 6, and we are not sure you will be in silent afib, so you will still have to take an anticoagulant and in many cases a toxic rhythm drug to keep you in normal sinus rhythm... OR... we can keep you in afib on rate control, but you might get heart failure and more heart remodeling that after a year, you will no longer be a good candidate for an ablation because the success rate drops off, plus your atria might enlarge... so what will it be? What do you want to do? Huh? Huh? Huh?"

Cut to an advertisement...

"If you have atrial fibrillation, or afib, not caused by a heart valve problem, Pradaxa cuts your risk by 35% over Warfarin..."

Cut to next advertisement...

"If you took Pradaxa and had a near fatal bleed, call the lawyers at BadDrug.com..."

"Honey, get my rat poison!"

I think it can work.

Ha ha, Petey what a hoot. How about " and if you seem to complain too much about the drugs and the (lack of) available treatments, they give you yet another pill "Metoprolol" which gives you chest and arm pain when you move, makes you dizzy and forgetful, increases depression, has a weight gain component and stops you sleeping. And when I complained about it, telling my Doc I couldn't concentrate at work he said "you shouldn't be working at your age anyway! They also tell you it's a very hard drug to come off. DOH!
When I feel like chucking in the towel I come to this site.

Petery,
Your scenerio is right on!! It would be hilarious if it weren't right on the money. It would be too much of a downer for any network to pick up!! The character would just decide, well, just kill me now!!

Ablations are so counterintuitive. You think about surgery as fixing things, not burning and CAUSING scars. Just think how the public would receive that kind of surgery!!