Ablation plus 2 months

[Shcldavies]

Following my weekly posts for 4 weeks, this is my first monthly post 2 months after my ablation.

Slow improvement continues, I started back on Bisprolol 1.25 after 6 weeks as my pulse rate went up to 80 and BP to 155/93 and both were continuing on an upward curve. After a day both began to decrease, levelling out at 69 and 127/75 and feeling good. Can now do much as I did when "normal" but lifting anything heavy is still a no no. Cardiac nurse told me that lifting will take a while longer. Now doing around 10000 steps most days and not restricting movements but not doing any excercise. Still get the odd ectopic and do get runs of tachicardia for 4 or 5 second most days. Over the last 3 days my pulse rate has dropped to 62 and BP increased to 145/90, will keep a watch on both to see if this is just a blip or if there is anything going on that I need to change my meds. Will see my Cardiologist next week to find out what was ablated and what I need to do about my MAT (which could not be ablated). The most difficult thing is deciding when to push myself and when to take it easy, I seem to have got the balance right so far but after all this time perhaps I should now start pushing myself a little more - who knows?

[BobD Volunteer]

Best advice is listen to your body.

[Shcldavies in reply to BobD]

Thanks Bob, I try to but sometimes my body does not speak my language, thankfully doing OK so far. Just in from some gardening and lifting, still feeling good so fingers crossed.

[Kellyjelly]

I’ve only just seen this! I’ve found all your updates so helpful over the last two months especially as your ablation and recovery was very similar to my experience.

I’m so glad you are continuing to feel improvements and it seems like you are really fine tuning your meds to help keep things on an even keel. Im sorry you are still having brief episodes of tachycardia most days, do those episodes worry you or do you feel quite confident that they won’t escalate? When do you see your cardiologist? will be interesting to see what he wants to do about the MAT.

I completely understand the worry about taking things to the next level, you have navigated it so well so far. I’ve noticed in the last week that I can definitely do more and feel more normal as a result I’ve been naturally doing more and more but if I overdo it my heart skips a few beats and then my heart rate goes up to about 85 and sits there for a few hours. In the second week my heart would do that after doing very little, now it’s doing it after a full day of doing normal stuff. It is a very reliable indicator of my limit at the moment so I pay attention to it and stop. I think that you will intuitively know how much to do, you have so far. Try doing a tiny bit more and see what happens, don’t push yourself just increase really gradually like you have been.

Wishing you all the best and thank you again for your updates 😊

[Shcldavies in reply to Kellyjelly]

Yes our recoveries are very similar, seems like we are both getting there slowly. My tachycardia is very short lived (up to 10 seconds) and is not like my "normal" SVT or the dreaded Aflutter in that it is just a fast heart rate without the funny feelings. The ectopics are getting less noticeable and now infrequent. Like you I try to keep within limits (but don't really know what the limits are) and have pushed a little too much when my heart rate went up suddenly when lifting heavy things, good news is that it went back to normal after a minute or so (I only know this by looking at my Fitbit trace, did not affect me at the time).

Cardiologist visit yesterday was a bit flat, he had not heard anything from my EP (ablation was in February) so don't know how much ablating was done or what the likely affects could be. He also had not seen my 24 HR monitor report (of last week). So I am no further forward in knowing any of the details I wanted. He seemed to loose interest saying MAT is not life threatening and can be treated with drugs, he also suggested that it is probably due to a condition I have had since birth. I strongly believe that it is caused by something like electrolyte imbalance or some other form of irritation as if it has always been there why does it only appear less that 1% of the time - I just don't know what the cause of the irritation is? For now I am to continue with Bisaprolol 1.25 and stop the Rivaroxiban, if I get any episodes I take another Bisoprolol 1.25, if it goes on for more than an hour I go to A&E. Hopefully the combination of the ablation, the low dose medication and the magnesium suppliments (to balance my electrolytes) will work. Next Cardiologist visit in September.

My advice is listen to your doctor, but be aware they do not know everything about our condition so you must also use the experiance of the good people on this site to form your own opinion, don't do anything drastic without clearing it with the Doc first. Thankfully you seem to be doing everything right and improving at much the same rate as I am, you've identified your indicators well and react as you should - always err on the safe side as I feel a bout of SVT could put recover back a bit. Well done and keep us posted on your recovery and any tips or do's and don'ts.