Time to give up, Ablate and Pace or go for 5box...

Diagnosed with CHF and DCM in 1999. Probably tachycardia-induced. Multiple ineffective DC cardioversions, months of amiodarone, years of Tikosyn, Sotalol, and so many other drugs.  Had my 2nd ablation at the mayo clinic in 2007. Restored NSR for 24 hours until an echo-tech jammed the probe really hard into my chestwall, knocked back into permanent afib since then.  The ablation helped though, flutter was gone, vagal sensitivity was gone and eventually with the help of 80 mg a day (CR) of Coreg, plus digoxin, ACE inhibitor, diuretic and more... my hard rate settled down into the 70's and my ejection fraction improved to 60%! Awesome.

But 6 months ago started developing asthma symptoms, heart behaving worse, now my average rate is 120 and my local EP is recommending "ablate and pace" with a dual-chamber device.
I'm scheduling it now but ran across a website today discussing Dr. Sirak's "5 box mini-maze" procedure.  I went to his website and filled out the online webform and was amazed when I got a call back, from the Dr. himself within an hour -- on a Saturday!  He feels that I am a candidate and so now I'm considering telling my local cardiologist to put things on hold.

I was all for the ablate and pace option but I'm really anxious about it being irrevocable and I travel a lot and have to deal with airport security all the time, I'm 54 and have a lot of years before I retire and this mini-maze option looks promising.

I know I'm posting this in the "pacemaker" part of this forum, so I don't know if this is correct, but maybe I can get some feedback from others about their decision to ablate and pace... I'm starting to think that one more go at "fixing" the problem might be worth it.

Jim

PS... I've developed asthma over the last 6 months and my cardiologist thinks this might be related to teh 80 mg of Coreg (CR) that I take... and comments on that?  Anyone with a similar situation?

[LindaTX]

I feel for you....I had a PVI ablation in Sept. and had to go back on anti-arrhythmics immediately afterwards.  Finally in Dec. I was put on a very high dose of flecainide which I had good results with in the past.  I am now off it and have been a-fib free for over 5 months.  I do have to say...there are a lot of people on here who have had excellent results with Dr. Sirak's 5-box.  If I were you, I would give it a shot. tom_h is one of many on here who has had it done. Good luck in whatever way you decide to go.