I had my ablation pre-assessment over the telephone yesterday and will shortly be sent forms to book blood tests at my local surgery. I will then be given a date for the procedure at Barts. I will shortly start Apixaban.
I asked several questions. Firstly, they said that there would not be a TOE before to check for clots provided that I had been on Apixaban for at least 3 weeks. I was surprised at this as I thought a TOE was compulsory prior to an ablation. The procedure should take an hour and a half but sometimes they run to three or four hours of they find a lot of area to ablate. If I have sedation (I can decide) I may feel the “freeze” when the cryoballoon is used. I asked if they ever have to abandon procedures because the patient is too anxious; they said that this was fairly rare. Cannot say I am looking forward to!
Different hospitals different protocols but when I had my AF ablations I had to be on warfarin for three months in advance. I thought DOACs one month these days. TOE usual in event that anticoagulation has not been guaranteed .
You are going to be just fine. Look at me. I'm the consummate picture of no Afib since last March! After the third time. Ablations are very routine now. Ask your EP how many he has performed. Get educated on it, it will help you immensely to feel less scared.
It's understandable that your not looking forward to it but I never looked forward to having teeth out when young. it was the same fear , but like any unpleasant procedure, it's all of a sudden over with and your done.
Ablation has been amazing for me. Five years on and I'm still in rhythm.
For me it was very painful. even with sdation, but I grin and beard it and as I said before you know it your sitting up in bed recovering
I had 2 ablations. initially they thought I just had flutter but then AF appeared and that was what made me symtomatic. Fortunately the cardiologist told me that the AF was blocked quite quickly once they started the procedure. I was pretty much back to normal a couple of weeks later
Good for you that your cardiologist was on top of things. So many GPs, cardiologists and EPs let their patients progress to persistent whereby their patients have to have extensive ablations with poorer outcomes and high recurrence. I find that sort of healthcare criminal. It's wonderful to hear your story and it's not surprising that you're five years AF free. The best that you continue to stay in sinus.
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