When successful, an Ablation can be life changing for patients suffering from Arrhythmias, however often multiple ablations must be performed before success is achieved, and often patients never benefit. I had an Ablation when my ICD was implanted and it was unsuccessful. Whether some of the new irregular heart beats are a consequence I'll never know for sure.

I don't want to scare you, I know several people who were cured by Ablation, but I would encourage you to study the procedure and ask a lot of questions of your Dr.

From my research much is dependent on the skill of the Electrophysiologist who performs the procedure.

I'd ask who is going to do the procedure, what his success rate is, Are there other options besides an Ablation, what the success rate for your particular ablation is and how often the procedure must be repeated before success is achieved. What are the risks, can you expect positive results immediately or will it take time for the heart to recover.

Additionally you might want to find out whether you'll have to use a pacemaker or ICD. Remember, an Ablation cannot be undone. They are destroying electrical nodes/tissue. You can probably tell I'm not a big fan. I believe it to be a last resort and frankly less scientific than one would hope, but that's just my opinion and I was wrong once.

Good luck on whatever you decide.

Thank you, RoboPop. I plan to do as much research as possible before I decide. The Dr. that would be doing my ablation would be the same Dr. who implanted my ICD so I have been under his care since that time and have no complaints.

HI Pammy

I had a pvc ablation in 2007. I was throwing 18,000 PVC's a day from an electrical problem in my heart. That was literally destroying my heart, since it was already down to 10 percent EF.

The procedure was 4-1/2 hours under twilight sedation (menaing I woke up every hour and they would put me back to sleep) .

The procedure was quite successful for me. They did have to go into both sides of the heart to find the problem.

It was a hard day and the next day was also difficult for me to recover.

Without the procedure I could not have survived for much longer.

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now some thoughts - the procedure has to be for some significant reason - ask why. ask what the results will mean to you - will you need an idc or defibrollator after the procedure.

It is very likely that they are asking for the procedure because you need it to survive - do not dismiss it lightly.

hugs, Raoul

Hi Pammy,
You will find a lot of good information and support on the "Atrial Fibrillation (AFIB) support group. Many of our members have had or are scheduled for Ablations.
I hope you check it out.
Annette

Thank you Annette, I will definitely do that!