Does anyone know of a test trial for permanent atrial fib?

[mendoman]

I have had it for at least 6 years and Id love to find a way out of it at age 49. I've heard there are some new oblations that might work. Im not keen on pharma tests. Bystolic is the most wonderful beta blocker, also reduced my BP and has none of the awful side effects of the older ones I was on

[Beancounter Volunteer]

Hi Mendoman and welcome to the forum.

Trials? not aware of any, and really happy to find you have a beta blocker that works, I think you are the first here on that one, and I am guessing US Based?.

What I would say is there is permanent and permanent, you don't say what effects it is having on your lifestyle whether or not you are having episodes or not.

I am permanent, and get almost no symptoms, so for me currently an ablation would probably mean the cure was worse than the condition. But each of us is individual, and we certainly know that A Fib is individual in everyone.

Tell us more and perhaps we can come up with some suggestions

Good health

Ian

[Hidden]

I had AF constantly (i.e. 24 hours a day, every day) for a few years back in the early 2000's. The last couple of years of suffering it, I was on drugs which controlled it very well. But the drugs had side-effects which were making my working life impossible, so I was booked in for an ablation in 2005/6. My EP said that because my AF was there all the time or at least 85% of the time, it would be easy to fix. He said that usually, with "intermittent" AF, they can do an operation and not know for some time whether it has worked or not, but with me they would know straight away and, as I recall, he was very confident of a good result but said it might need tweaking again in 5-15 years time.

That's exactly what happened, he did an ablation and I had an immediate, 100% cure which lasted for 8 years. Now something is happening again but not sure it's AF actually, it feels different. Seeing him again tomorrow.

That experience seems to fly in the face of what has been said by other EP's, so there's something wrong somewhere but I know for sure what happened to me.

PS. I do wonder whether there's some confusion about the word "permanent", because it has a normal meaning in English, i.e. constant, all the time, but you see it used to describe AF that has not responded to treatment.