Get a second opinion

[RickDG]

Just a quick note to remind people that it's a good idea to get a second opinion sometimes.  The docs will even encourage it.  I had my first hospitalization for VTac in June and went to a large hosptial in nearby Rhode Island.  It's affiliated with an Ivy League teaching hospital  Brown .  I was there a 6 days and the docs were nice.  I had an ablation.  They thought I might have had a rare condition called ARVD and I asked for a second opinion.  They suggested one of the top EP's at Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston, which is affiliated with Harvard's med school.  About a month and a half after my ablation I was going into Vtac almost on a daily basis.  I scheduled an ablation with the Boston hospital, after all, this guy taught the EP at Rhode Island Hospital.  Hate to sound like a snob but the experience was like night and day in terms of professionalism and expertise. All docs are not created equal and all hospitals are not created equal.  Go with your instinct.

[RickDG]

So far I don't meet the criteria for ARVD, I have one major and one minor factor.  Have had two MRI's and will have them once a year from now on.  The MRI may not show it entirely either.  Have they done a Signal Average EKG?  ARVD can't be treated by ablation, you are correct, but Vtac can be.  I'm surprised that you have had only one EP study if you still go into Vtac (do you?).  What makes them think it might be ARVD?

Also, the first EP I went to brought up the ARVD issue and sent me for a second opinion.  The second guy is Dr. Mark Josephson, top EP at BIDMC in Boston (Harvard Med School) and he trained my original EP and he's one of the pioneers in the field.  While the two EP studies he has done haven't fixed me yet, I know the guy knows what he's doing and is the best in the biz.  People fly in from all over the country to have him do their procedures.  He said ARVD isn't an issue for me right now but they will monitor it going forward anyway with yearly MRI's.  Compared with the first EP lab I was in, this one is light years ahead of the other one.

[kim8400]

Hi, just curious if they ever said whether you had ARVD or not. That is what they are looking into for me, I've already had an ep study done about 2 years ago, but they couldn't induce then, now they are going to do an mri to see if it is arvd. And from what my docs have said, arvd cannot be cured nor treated with an ablation. It is a progressive disease, that ultimately requires transplant. The only course of "treatment" for this would be an ICD as so that the dangerous arrhythmias caused by the fatty replacement in the right ventricle do not cause scd.

[mabebesc]

I had my ablation done at Boston Medical Center and had a really good experience.  My Dr. was Dr. Kevin Monahan and he was excellent.  I was in the EP lab  only two and a half hours and was told my ablation was successful.  I was awake and felt no pain at all. I guess you're right that not all docs are created equal!

[Brooke_38]

Just curious about who your EP was at the BI. My cardiologist tried 2 seperate attempts in the EP lab to cure me, he then refered me to a top notch EP at the Brigham. He's now had the pleasure to have me in his EP lab 3 times. He was professional, but I have to say during some of my admissions I felt like I had walked onto the set of a medical bloopers and blunders show. Not too cool, I might add.