Live Health Chat: Atrial Fibrillation, April 13th (Special Guest Dr. Bruce Lindsay, Cleveland Clinic)

Atrial Fibrillation - Surgical and Nonsurgical Advances
Monday Apr 13, 2009, 12:00PM - 01:00PM (EST)

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Cleveland Clinic cardiovascular specialists are at the forefront of development and utilization of the newest therapies for treating atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common of all irregular heart rhythms. At the Center for Atrial Fibrillation, one of the nation's busiest AF programs, our staff provides a full array of approaches to diagnose and treat atrial fibrillation, whether medical, catheter based, or surgical. Please join us to chat with two of our experts, electrophysiologist, Dr. Bruce Lindsay, and cardiac surgeon, Dr. A. Marc Gillinov, as they take your questions about the causes and new treatment options for atrial fibrillation.

Dr. Bruce D. Lindsay is Section Head, Cardiac Electrophysiology and Pacing at the Cleveland Clinic Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiology, and Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology. He served as President of the Heart Rhythm Society 2007-2008 and chaired the Heart Rhythm Society's Annual Scientific Program in Boston in 2006, which was attended by more than 13,000 international physicians, scientists, and allied health professionals. Dr. Lindsay recently completed a term on Board of Trustees for the American College of Cardiology, and formerly chaired the College's Board of Governors. He also serves on the ABIM test writing committee for Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology.

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[bama jane]

I have had arrhythmias for 10 years, paroxysmal atrial tachycardia also lots of pac's daily single, pairs, runs, trigeminy, bigeminy, on a daily basis. Some pvc's, sinus arhythmia, junctional arrhythmias and wandering pace maker seen in past but not recently on holter monitors.   tried all of the medications , none have worked completely.  Am on atenenol now.  Have no cad or structural disease.  Heart is very sensitive to everything.  Most iv meds will send it to racing, had to be put to sleep for recent root canal because all meds made my heart race.  Even the stuff to put me to sleep made it race at first.  Father had similar situation that turned into atrial fib, but he had svt first then developed copd from smoking then the chronic afib and congestive heart failure and then died.   Question are: Can you determine if the pac's are coming from one spot on the tracings from holters and event monitors?  Are they ablatable?  I have 100's daily and am very synptomatic from them.  Is atrial fibrilation hereditary  and if so can I change that?  Had a failed ablation attempt 9 years ago in San Francisco, all they could produe was sinus tach, said I had a hyper sensitive sinus node?  Is that even a diagnosis?  At what point do pac's on a daily basis damage the heart?  After trying to live with this for 10 years, have developed anxiety over it.  How do you tell the difference between a racing heart from an electrical perspective and a racing heart due to anxiety?
Thank You