My extremely active husband had his ablation 3 weeks ago. He has been careful not to be too active and he is working 40% 2 weeks after the op. Near the end of the day he gets the irregular heart beats, heart racing and stopping. It has happend 12 times since the op and I’m wondering wether others could share theit stories.
Much appreciated
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Oslo-Hearts
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Our fact sheet on recovery suggests two weeks rest at minimum and then provided that your job is not too physical you ease back in gently. Sounds like a typical male overdoing things. I wasted my first ablation by being a damned hero .
Do read the fact sheet (AF Assciation website under patient resources) as it will show him that these events are quite common but that it is important to listen to your body especially when it is screaming please stop! He may not have a giant zip up his chest but his heart has had considerable trauma.
No he didn’t over do it at all. His first two weeks were spent relaxing and resting.
Then he slowly started to get back into things, but he didn’t train until 2,5 weeks after the op and even then it was light trainIng. It was the doctor who said training would be ok.
So you’re saying that you needed a second op because u over exerted yourself?
They say there is a 3 month waiting period to see how your heart responds. Are things supposed to normalize or is this phase which my husband is going through a sign that the op was a failure.
Doctors have seldom had ablations. We who have (I had three) actually understand what it means and how it feels which is why we produced the fact sheet. Training that soon after ablation is at best unwise I feel. Having AF often means people having to make difficult life style choice, especially those who like to push their bodies to extremes. Since there is no cure as such all treatment is only ever about improving quality of life (QOL) . Three to six months is the normal time for the heart to recover but many of us were still experiencing improvement up to nine months afterwards. Lots of things can happen in those first few months which do not mean the procedure (it isn't an operation) has failed.
I second that - I had to have 2nd ablation 12 weeks after first because I went back and did far too much, far too soon - even though I felt I could. Doctors are too optimistic about recovery times. If you experience tachycardia, ectopics or arrythmias your body is telling you to go s.l.o.w.e.r
Thank you so much for this. It’s weird that the doctors would believe that he would be back to normal just two weeks after the op. So basically he needs a lot more rest. And hopefully things will normalise?!
I too am very active - in the top dozen or so 5K runners for my age group in the UK. I had an ablation for flutter seven few weeks ago. I stopped taking bisprolol after a couple of weeks but a day later my pulse rate doubled. Back to square one I thought. However my doctor advised me to restart bisprolol and within a couple of days I was back in normal rhythm. It seems that I was having ectopic beats. I'm now off bisoprolol again after seven weeks and no further problems. As far as exercise is concerned I started steadily increasing my walking day by day but didn't jog at all until nearly four weeks out. I'm taking it steady and don't think I'll be back to where I was before until October/November at least. By the way Parkruns are a great way of gauging week by week fitness and I found a helpful Parkrun for people living with heart conditions Facebook page!
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