Hi All
Just after a bit of advice. I am now 6 weeks post ablation- first four weeks I was doing really well. Last 2 weeks heart rate has jumped to between 115 and 120 bpm and that is for most of the day. It occasionally goes down to 80ish bpm. Also have a cold which isn't helping. My arrhythmia nurse is away and my GP isn't much help. Is the increased heart rate normal?
I am still on bisoprolol, ramipril, eplerenone, Furosemide and rivaroxaban.
Any thoughts?
All perfectly normal as you will see if you read the AF Association factsheet, link below. The healing process can take up to 6 months, sometimes longer and during that time it’s quite normal to experience changes in the way your heart performs. Try not to worry because that doesn’t help either........
I know this is worrying after an ablation but we all go through different recovery and have symptoms for some time after. In my case the Doc gave me some leeway to adjust my Bisoprolol and Digoxin to match my symptoms (BP and HRT), after about 8 weeks (and some discussions with the GP), I settled on just 1.25 Bisoprolol and that seemed to work for me. Whilst what your going through now is probably part of your recovery I would speak to the EP or cardiac nurse (when she returns) or at least the GP again to see if they can recommend a tweak in you Meds to help (got to give any tweak 3 to 4 days to work). Do not change anything until you have spoken to a medical professional as your particular case may need a balance of meds to aid recovery.
Once you have had AF, even after ablation, I found that even the slightest infection or cold or virus will affect my heart = elevated HR, ectopics just feeling ‘jumpy’. I would guess that this however is far more to do with your cold which will have caused an inflammatory response which is triggering your still healing heart. I found that when this happened the only thing to do was go back to week 1 protocol and rest and drink plenty of fluids for a few days.
I found my HR really didn’t return to normal for about 9 months - whereas I had a resting rate of about 60 prior to ablation, it tended to be 80-90 - very gradually decreasing down to about 65 after about 8 months so a slightly higher than normal rate is to be expected.
Best wishes CD.
If that is your resting rate, then I don't think being mostly between 115-120 bpm is normal 6 weeks after an ablation. I would say it could go up to 100 when sat, but higher than that I feel isn't right. It may be caused by your cold, but unless it's a really bad one I'm very doubtful. When mine went at the same rate as yours about 6 weeks after my third ablation I was given a cardioversion which brought it back to it's normal range.
Surely your EP has more than one arrhythmia nurse, ask to speak to another one as they work as one team. Ask if can you go in and see them and push to get this sorted. Unfortunately, if it's anything like my hospital there are no AF nurses on duty over the weekend.
Please let us know how you get on.
Best wishes
Jean
Trouble is that unless it’s over 120 at our hospital it wouldn’t be considered abnormal. Any infection however slight causes that reaction with me. I have a virus at the moment & resting rate is currently 80-100. But of course any concerns should be voiced to your regular team.
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