Irregular heart beats following heart surgery

[Sherri20]

My husband had quadtriple bypass surgery June 18, 2009.  He is still in the hospital.  Part is because he is diabetic and they have to get that regulated but the doctor just told him he has an irregular heart beat and they may have to go back in.  He never had one before the surgery and is feeling fine, walking the halls, eating good and wants to go home.I know he is scared and who wouldn't be, but what could cause this and why the need to possibly go back in?

Could this be a temporary thing?  He is only 8 months away from getting on medicare. I'm trying to keep him calm but I'm afraid too.

Sherri20

[twinbee]

In 2005 my dad had triple bypass surgery. He also had rhythm problems after surgery.

[Jerry_NJ]

I am not aware of any relationship between bypass surgery and the development of a heart arrhythmia - but his heart doctors should know and let you know.  

Arrhythmia is caused by "electrical" signal generation and transmission problems inside the heart and its muscles ... which are not to my knowledge "touched" in bypass surgery.

If the medicare issue is you don't have insurance coverage, my experience says one should be able put off any surgery, including ablation procedures, for several months.  It would likely require the application of some medications to control the severity of the rhythm problems/symptoms and to reduce the possibility of clot formation.   All of that said, there is no 'magic bullet" to cure arrhythmia problems...so unless your bypass surgeon knows there is something done during his surgery that can be corrected/modified/whatever, I would not be over confident that "going back in" will fix the problem.

I suffer from AFib and have undergone open heart surgery for a leaky heart valve. While open I underwent a "maze" procedure to cure AFib, it did not stop the AFib.  My valve surgeon (maze surgeon) gave the maze procedure about a 60% chance of success, I came in the 40% side.