3rd Ablation?

[James88]

Hi everyone--

I'm a 20 year old male who suffers from VT and has had 2 ablations and has a defibrillator implant.  I'm also on 200mg Amiodarone and 50mg of Toprol daily after my 2nd ablation.  

My 2nd ablation was in May of 2007 and I was in the operating room for about 6 hours.  It was a very extensive procedure, much more than my first ablation and recovery was well as I had gotten three 3rd degree burns from a mishap during the ablation.  Since then I have been episode-free and virtually no PVCs (knock on wood).  However, recently my defibrillator lead broke and I had to have my whole defibrillator replaced.  As I was waking up from surgery I was told my heart went into VT after being irritated, and because of this and the fact that Amiodarone can be toxic after a number of years, my EP recommended I have a 3rd ablation  in the summer.

Do you think it's smart to get another ablation when my heart has been episode free for a year and a half?  Personally, I'm all for it; I'm a very paranoid person when it comes to my heart and I fear I'll die every day because of my heart so I'm willing to do whatever it takes for me to survive.  I trust my EP but he seems to be rushing this next ablation as if it were almost an emergency, which has me even more worried.  

The thing is, I'm so tired of going in and out of the hospital for surgeries (this ablation will be operation #5) and I'm tired of cancelling plans for my surgery.  I'm also not too excited to jump back into another ablation after my burns from last time. I had hopes to study abroad this summer and would have to cancel that so I can get my 3rd ablation.  

My EP wants the ablation this summer though, which I will agree to, but do you think it's really that necessary to rush it for this summer, or would it be okay if I pushed it back another few months?  

Also, can getting too many ablations cause problems for my heart rather than help it?  I'm just worried because it seems every year I'm going in for an operation and I fear too much can possibly kill me.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

[James88]

Thank you for your input Jerry!

Can anyone else answer my concern about any risks involved in having too many ablations?  I'm at college now and it's tough for me to get ahold of my EP.

[Jerry_NJ]

Wow, you've been through a lot and I understand your apprehension about another ablation.

I have nothing to base an argument to help you put off the ablation for a few months, but it seems like a reasonable request given you are back to normal operations, implant fixed.  It seems too that there is a strong need to get you off of a very strong medication, that's a good objective too, but I wonder why your doctor is pushing so hard for another ablation.

I know when I needed heart surgery my doctors, cardiologist and surgeon agreed I could put it off for a few months for personal reasons, but I couldn't put it off for a year or more.  I wanted to put it "off" all together.  I did have the surgery and all went well.