post-ablation questions

[LynnSB]

I had an EP study and ablation for what turned out to be an AV reentrant tachycardia ( 210 BPM) that was easy to get to, according to the EP doc. I'm happy to say the whole procedure was painless and went off without a hitch although I'm still a bit tired.Is that normal? I guess I thought I'd be immediately "cured" of all arrhythmia but I'm having some palpitations.. not many and none of the rapid flutters I used to feel. I have -- maybe 5 to 10 times a day -- feelings of hard heartbeats ( sometimes 3 to 5 together), a skipped beat here and there, a couple of thumps, especially when I sit down or lie down.EP doc said that i might always have a few palps, to try and ignore them. and he said i might have a "transient" increase for a while in palps. questions.
1. do you agree this is normal? is there hope these palps will get better? are they anything to be concerned about?
2.my ep doc said the tachycardia could come back but it's only 1 chance in "many hundreds". Any comment on my chances of being really"cured"?
3. I thought an EP study was DEFINITIVE for whether you have life threatening arrhythmias but i recently read that an EP study doesnt't always elicit arrhythmias.. can you please tell me something REASSURING.i've been through all this and I'd like to know, bottom line, what an EP study DOES reveal so I can STOP WORRYING.By the way , I went to a very well known medical center that does many, many of these procedures. and i went to a highly experienced EP doc. I want to believe i can relax about my heart rhythm now but I've been scared for so long it is HARD!Thank yo

[Cleveland Clinic]

Lynn,

Sorry for the dely. Im glad to hear your procedure went well.

1) Yes this is normal. Inflammation after ablation can lead to the irritabilty of the area causing extra beats. this should fade

2) Nothing is perfect. Some people with one pathway may have another that is brought out by ablating the other. Time will tell. You however have a very good lielyhood of cure with the one procedure.

The EP study is a electrical map of the heart. It reveals areas of conduction in the heart and abberancies therein. Its not perfect as I mentioned above. For now don't worry. Live life like you are cured. If it reoccurs, there are ways to deal with it.

good luck

[12325Poohbear]

I, too had a sucessful ablation (a year ago) and am cured completely! For several weeks after, I had some "thumps and bumps" that scared me and made me think that my arrhythmia had returned, but an event monitor confirmed that they were only PAC's. Premature atrial contractions are a normal variant, not an arrhythmia. I still notice them occaisionally. Most healthy people have them from time to time-we just notice ours because of all we've been through! Congratulations on a sucessful proceedure. My life is so much better without meds and worry! Hope you can get confirmation that what you are feeling is normal and go on and live your life with confidence.

[cyn123]

Hello, i too had av node reentry and had ablation done as well.  I also still get pac and pvc and find that when i worry about them they get worse Md said dont worry they wont hurt me and everyone gets them. I think we just feel them more because of what we had.  Good luck to you and congradulations on your ablation procedure    you will find that your life will have more quality than before.

[LynnSB]

thanks, Cyn.. do you get PACs/PVCs every day??

[LynnSB]

thanks for posting! That's encouraging... I just want to let go of the fear.. but it so hard when I still feel my heart skipping a bit.. although not of the fast bursts of beats since the ablation!

Lynn

[Linda123]

Lynn - my cardio over here (the top one in UK, specialising in arrythmia problems) says that palpitations will increase for "about a month" after an ablation.  It'll be a long month though, right??  Five minutes is a long time with palpitations!
Congratulations on having your ablation, I'm sure you'll find things improving before too long.
Best Wishes, Linda

[LynnSB]

Thanks so much. That's so encouraging...

[LynnSB]

I see you've answered questions behind and ahead of this one, so hope springs eternal you'll get to mine. thanks!

I was just eating dinner, relaxed.. whammo.. a hard beat.. ignored it.. same thing happened again within a minute. and then again.

I'm just looking for a little reassurance here... also , if it is true that you can expect palps to be act up after an ablation, what's the mechanism? is there irritation to the heart from the procedure? thanks again.

[Kimma]

i had an ablation almost a year ago.  Right after the procedure i only had a few skipped beats every once and awhile but over the last few monthes it  has gotten pretty bad to where i get them about 100 times a day sometimes and some days i get only a few.  i moved and no doctor takes my insurance where i live now so im tryin to get that figured out so i can maybe start taking some meds. a part of me regrets the ablation because i only had tachy episodes once a month and now i live with the skipped and hard beats everyday.

[LynnSB]

The good news is that the runs of very, very fast beats I was having are gone -- that must have been the atrial tachycardia ( 210 BPM).... when I was wearing the event monitor and sending in my recordings, I could hear my heart rhythm as recorded beating regularly and then, like you turned on a switch, it would go in seemingly triple time for many beats. Then, as if a switch were turned off, suddenly be back at 72 bpm or so.

I hope and pray I'm just having plain old PVCs and PACs which I ALSO had a lot of on the event monitors.. and that maybe they will decrease over time..

[LynnSB]

Are you saying you didn't have PVCs and PACs UNTIL the ablation?

[jobob52 ford]

Hi, I've had three ablations, two in Oregon( one at Or.Health and Sciences University)without modification and on 9-12-03 had the procedure done at the Cleveland Clinc with a successful out come. Yippy! I am SOooo glad!
I would go into A FIB or Atrial Tach, usually the Tach, pulse would jump to 250-260 range, meds were Flecainide 150mg2X, and atenolol 37.5mg1X daily.
I haven't taken meds since 9-6-03 And haven't had any symptoms other than ocassional(3-5 per day) PACs or flutters, not sure, don't care. The main thing is, no tach and no meds!
Have wondered if some of what Hanstar said isn't valid. Could it be that whatever these flutters are are what triggered the tach symptoms? My wife also has flutters or skipped beats, I've heard them, when she's had too much cafine or chocolate so I think they must be relativly common, but as was mentioned, we're tuned into the 'feel' of the 'trigger'. What is new to me is the sensation of a pounding heart due to stress,ie.public speaking. I used to negotiate for Unions and heart would stay smooth as silk when emotions ramped up, I don't think that would happen now. I think this is normal too. Good luck. Enjoy & Keep the Faith.

[arthur]

It's extremely common to have a new set of "arrhythmias" after an ablation, for at least two reasons: chances are that not all the active foci were ablated (or isolated), so now you will feel skips that were much less apparent before, and of course, for a while after an ablation, the irriation due to the procedure will cause some of these to occur.  

Be patient.  Be thankful that the main cause of real concern appears to have been eradicated.  Tissue injury normally heals up completely within 1-2 weeks, some nervous tissue irritation may persist longer (and this does cause premature depolarizations to occur).  

You have been reconstructed.  The electrical pathways existent in your heart muscle have undergone a minor alteration (for the good).  Your new self needs to settle down and just relax.  I used to get afib with exercise.  Now I get an occassional "what was that?" that lasts a few seconds, now and then...I don't worry about it.  Worry is a killer.  It robs you of your life.  You used to have something to worry about.  You don't anymore.

-Arthur

[LynnSB]

Thank you both so much! It's as though a button is pushed when I feel a palpitation that causes me to worry and think -- UH-OH!  They didn't get the REAL bad stuff... UH-OH.. will I get a bad ventricular arrhythmia..

I know it is NUTSO.. I need to remind myself that, for heaven's sake, my electrical system of my heart has been checked out for " bad" arrhythmias as well as "fixed" for the a-tach.

I think I've been so self-protective for so long --- knowing there was a glitch in my heart and having no one, for many years, LISTEN to me and believe me until I finally got a good doc who put me on event monitors and cared...

Thanks again.. your input has helped me cope.

[Kimma]

yes...i had never felt any skipped beats before i got the ablation.  i guess i really dont regret the ablation because before i would get tachy episodes with 200-250 bpm that lasted 5-12 hours. i have had this since i was about 8 and no one ever thought it was anything bad until they caught it on an ekg when i was pregnant.  After i had my son i had another episode so i went to the ER, there they gave me adenosin and i went into atrial fibrillation for about 8 hours, the doctor decided to cardiovert me.  As i was signing papers to let them cardiovert me with the paddles i got so scared my heart went to 300bpms and then it converted on its own. (thank god) after that day i decided i would go for the ablation.  i was in the lab for over 6 hours and they ablated from both chambers....i think they ended up finding 3 xtra pathways.

[LynnSB]

Soooo down.. was just thinking, well, I'd only had two skipped beats and that things, post-ablation, seemed to be getting better. Then, for no reason, I was standing in the hall and it felt like my heart  was beating fast and irregularly for several seconds. this has not happened since the ablation. I am just so depressed... hoping this will not mean the tachycardia is coming back! It only lasted for maybe 3 or 4 seconds but it scared me so much.

[Linda123]

Hang on in there Lynn, my cardiologist told me that palpitations would increase for about a month after the ablation.  Has a month passed yet?  Once the burn settles down hopefully so will your heart.
Best Wishes, Linda

[LynnSB]

Thanks, Hank. I suspect you are partially right. They did, I hope and pray, get the arrhythmia that left me momentarily feeling weak and just plain awful. By wearing the event monitor for 2 months, I was able to correlate those episodes with bursts of the atrial tach -- very fast atrial runs -- so that should have been taken care of with the ablation.

I haven't experienced that particular feeling  since the ablation UNTIL today -- although it wasn't exactly like what I felt before, more a flutter.

So you are probably right that I am having and will always have some pvcs and pacs. I just want to believe the ablation WORKED on the fast beats..

and I want to believe, as several people and the docs have said, that the other irregular beats will calm down -- even if they won't ever go away - eventually.

[LynnSB]

THANKS, Linda.. every little bit of encouragement just means the world to me right now. I am exactly one week and 3 days post-ablation.
Did you feel any flutters or just hard heartbeats or what after your procedure?  I have definitely had fewer the past couple of days -- i was so encouraged until the "fluttery" episode!


Lynn

[Linda123]

Lynn, I haven't had my ablation yet (am waiting) but my cardiologist did tell me when I saw him that palpitations would increase for about a month after having an ablation.
Flutters are so distressing - I simply can't stand them which is why I'm opting for an ablation.
Keep us posted on your progress.
Best Wishes, Linda

[LynnSB]

THANKS so much for posting. I can't say my palpitations have increased these past  almost three weeks ( in 2 days) since my ablation. I'm certainly having fewer than I was pre ablation . But I've had several today, including some "flutters" and two thumps right together -- and I immediately felt SO WORRIED.

My docs ( cardiogist nor the EP) talked to me at all about more palps after the ablation until I called the EP and he did say that was to be expected for a while. Still, I think I've worried so much about the palpitations that it is hard not to. I want them to GO AWAY! and i want to believe the fast heartbeats have been "cured"...

I can say, Linda, that the ablation itself, the procedure , was a total piece of cake and easier than most dental procedures. So don't be afraid and GOOD LUCK!

[glassheart46]

Hello..I am new to this forum but just read all of your posts.  I am now very confused.  I am scheduled for an EP study and possible ablation at the end of the month.  My confusion comes from the follow:  I experience fast heart beats after I go to sleep at night.  They wake me with a vengence.  A year and a half ago my cardio put me on Verapamil for the above.  The Verapamil pretty much took care of those episodes.  What is going on with me now is the following:  Last Thursday my heart started to beat irregularly but not fast.  I am now in and have been in this irregularly beat pretty much 24/7.  From time to time it converts to a regular rhythm but dosn't last very long.  My heart feels like it flutters sometimes or like I'm having extra beats or early beats.  This goes on all day and all night.  It is these beats that I was hopeful that the ablation would eliminate as well as the fast beats.  What does seem to help these funny beats is an extra Verapamil (fast acting) as my regular Verapamil is a slow release type.  I was so discouraged when I read all of your posts about pvc's and pac's going on with you guys after your ablation especially when I was hoping that is what will help mine.  I did go to the ER last Thursday and they ran a strip and said I was having PAT's and were not life-threatning.  However, I sure do not think I could stand to have these all day long for the rest of my life.  Also, whoever says that these are not upsetting is wrong.  It is pretty hard to not think about it when you can feel them constantly.  I do not have any underlying heart problems.  Any input would be appreciated.

[LynnSB]

If you are scheduled for an EP study and possible ablation, then surely your cardiologist thinks it's worth doing -- consider yourself lucky that you got referred to an EP doc!  Be excited that maybe you'll get "fixed" and at the very least you'll get a more definitive idea about what on earth is making your heart beat irregularly and whether it could possible ever be dangerous.

I'm not suggesting an EP study/ablation is "nothing". It is invasive. But from everything I've read and everything I experienced, it's very, very safe in the hands of experienced EP folks. And while I'm still having some heart palpitations and, yes, I'm upset about it, I'm STILL glad i had it done. i feel that after all the years of worrying about my heart, finally I was taken seriously and the electrical system of my heart was studied and at least one area "zapped" that was causes spurts of very rapid beats that, if they had ever gotten going instead of just coming in "spurts" could have caused me a lot more trouble.

No one can tell you what to do -- except yourself. listen to your doc . But don't let fear keep you from having the EP study. It truly is not painful or scary at all.

[glassheart46]

Thanks for your comments Lynn.  I am anxious to have this EP study as I am so tired of these heart rhythm problems.  I also am hopeful that at least one of the problems can be fixed (the rapid beats) as the EP doc pretty much assured me he could fix that one.  This other problem thats been going on now since last Thursday is really kinda scarry.  The ER told me it was pac's, but also suggested an EP study would be a good idea.  It is just that I have not been able to find any posts where an ablation can fix that kind of a irregular beat.  If it wasn't all the time I would not worry so much.  The thing is I am having this possible ablation so that I can go off of meds and now they have me on the same meds for this new heartbeat that has showed up.  Have you seen any posts about possible ablation for pac's 24/7?  Thanks again and have a great day!