Question about Radiofrequency Catheter Ablation & Atenolol

[locky88]

My wife (39 yrs old) was recently diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson White Syndrome and she will have RFCA done at the end of this month. She is currently on Atenolol (25mg/day) & statin plus Aspirin (80mg), These were subcribed to her by prior doctor (4 years ago) as precaution due to the SVT she had and the history of heart disease in her family (her mom and 3 older brothers had stroke/heart-attack and only one survived). I thought I read somewhere that said they normally stopped atenolol before the RFCA procedure, but our doctor did not order that. She will have a pre-op check up 4 days prior to the procedure and if we ask the doctor then, would it be too close to stop? How early she needs to stop the medication if that is common procedure? Also, recently, she told me she had quite a few occasions (way more than normal) that her heart beats quite hard & strong, as if an episode of SVT about to start and she needed to rest to calm it down. Is this a concern and should we contact our EP about this?

Thanks in advance
Locky

[sharby]

I had an ablation two weeks ago for SVT and AVNRT.  Previous to the ablation I was taking 50 mg of atenolol daily.  My doctor advised me to discontinue the atenolol for 4 days prior to the ablation, and take 1/2 dose for 4 days prior to that.  I was told that the atenolol may inhibit the abilities of the doc to stimulate my heart which would make it difficult to determine where the exact problem was.  I don't know if it would be different for WPW but that was my experience.
Hope the ablation is successful for your wife.

[Jerry_NJ]

Good luck with the Ablation.  I understand the procedure is very effective in treating WPW.

Call your doctors office, you should be able to get an answer without going into see the doctor, what has to be stopped has to be a regular procedure for them, the front office must know, or can check with the surgeon/specialist.

In general, aspirin and anything that "thins" the blood is stopped several days before any procedure that may cause bleeding.  I'm not saying this is the case for Ablation, I don't know, but I do know you need to check.

Again, keep a positive attitude, I read a lot of good things about Ablation for the subject condition.