You may remember I was due for repeat ablation under general anaesthetic on 13th after the previous procedure had to be aborted.
Well had procedure everything went OK. You do have to lie flat afterwards and I needed the loo so bedpan was produced. Very hard to wee lying down in bed! I have IBS and not only urine came out. Absolutely mortified and when I buzzed it was a male HCA. Just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.
Anyway got home next day lunchtime and in the afternoon developed strange chest pain I've not had before going into shoulders. Hoped it would settle but was then advised to go to A&E. Start of a nightmare. Arrived 6.30pm bloods taken and showed possible heart attack and told I needed admitting. I was then left sitting in a chair all night along with a poor man who had a suspected stroke. I did explain to them I had an ablation and needed to rest but not even a trolley available. One lady gave up at 7am and got a taxi home. I told them I was doing the same but was scared into not doing this as they said I could die. I finally got a bed at 4.30pm.
Sunday morning I saw an awful consultant who spoke to me like I was a 3 year old with learning difficulties. I had to wait 3 days for an angiogram and reading up on this about catheters into the heart went into mad panic mode thinking it would be like my awfully painful aborted ablation
Went for angiogram and another lovely consultant said to me beforehand that he didn't think the bloods indicated a heart attack. Angiogram went fine and showed clear arteries and no heart attack and I was discharged.
All the nurses HCAs and doctors could not have been kinder or more caring with the one exception. I am just so upset about all of it. I know the NHS is stretched but my A&E experience was awful and made me feel I was in a third world country
Sorry for long post xx
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honey1958
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Sounds like you had nightmare during your visit. You are not the first and won't be the last to go through this.
Now looking on the postive side. You have had your ablation which seemed to go well. Hopefully it will work for you and in a month or so you will see improvements. Also you said the angiogram went well and showed clear arteries and no heart attack - same with the blood tests. That's really good news. In time you will look back and be reassured by these results knowing you are on the right track. It was unpleasent for you but the end result will be worth it - better safe than sorry and hopefully you will have a brighter future because of this. Try to think about the positive things that have come from this rather than giving yourself 'brain fog' thinking about the bad.
Thankyou so much for your support. I am trying to be positive but feel so worn down by it all. Consultant said ablation was successful but showed previous one was 95% successful but I still had AF after? Thankyou again foe your encouragement. Hope you are ok
I too had a horrendous a and e experience following my latest AF episode back in August . Following my second ablation , the information I received post ablation stated that ‘ if I presented with persistent AF to get myself to a and e having not eaten for 6 hours for a cardioversion ‘. That is the only reason that I went and wished I hadn’t as I was discharged 13 hours later exactly the same as I went in . Didn’t even get to see a cardiologist . Stuck in corridors for hours and hours . It was just awful .
As Paul said though for you at least you got to have an angiogram that showed your circulation to the heart is good , so that’s a big positive . I recall after both of my ablations I did get chest and shoulder pain . It is frightening when you don’t know if that is ‘ post ablation pain ‘ or new cardiac symptoms .
No words of wisdom , just wanted to empathise with you and share my own nightmare a and e experience !
Take care and hope this second ablation has worked for you .
yes , my second didn’t work . That was back in early March . I went back into persistent AF Aug 22nd and didn’t flip back . Worse 7 weeks of my life as I had daily chest pain , constant palpitations , shortness of breath on minimal exertion and felt like I had a small elephant sat in my diaphragm all the time . Took 7 weeks to get a cardio version and that was bloody good for NHS !
Basically , the AF just keeps on coming back . The cardiologist has mentioned twice now that I have a ‘dysfunctional Sinus node , or sick sinus syndrome’ as also called but not really gone into detail on what exactly that means . Has kept on saying getting back to sinus rhythm is best way to manage me and this issue . However he has now mentioned , what I now know ( from internet research ) of as the dreaded last resort , ‘ pace and ablate ‘ . This is where the sinus node is ablated so you rely on a permanent pacemaker for heart pacing . Apparently it’s a last resort when all else fails . Hence , he wants to do no 3 ablation and do different areas that research has shown can cause AF to persist .
It’s a minefield . I’m currently on healthy eating / lifestyle plan as need to lose weight for ablation no 3 .
I hear you! Been there. It sounds like you had some inflammation that caused the pain and it spread in that worrying way. I had nasty chest pains during my first might following my first ablation. But if they didn't find signs of a heart event in your bloods and any scan was fine then you should be OK. It seems some people are completely plain sailing post ablation and others aren't. Even with my 2nd I had BP issues. But it did settle down and I'm sure yours will too.
A and E is just awful these days. They should at least have put you on a trolley. I had to dig my heels in to get one last time I went in. Luckily I went into AF, then they found one for me. And the duty doctors are either stressed out or rushed and brusque. It's got so much worse since COVID. very sad.
Yes went to A & E a few months ago with chest pain.13 hours to see a doctor.Left with a diagnosis of muscle strain.No way but too tired & drained to care.Had to say I was leaving to get any tests.Too be fair paramedics did ECG before I went to hospital.
I do hope you feel better both physically & mentally & the ablation does the trick this time.
Its just so wrong that you have to threaten to leave to get treatment. I spoke to the nurse in charge on the Saturday afternoon and she positively encouraged me to complain to PALS saying the more complaints they have more chance of something being done. Like you though I was at the point of being too tired and drained to care
oh I am so so sorry, my heart goes out to you. I hope you can recover. I dread A&E for all those reasons. So so sad. What have we allowed to happen.
A&E has been an awful experience several times for me in the North East of the UK. So much so that I said to my partner that I will have to be on death's door before you get me there again. I'm sorry you had such a bad experience.
I know the feeling of saying you would need to be on deaths door to go to A&E again! I said that last year after spending 6 hours at night sitting in a corridor. Thought it couldn't be so bad this time. Boy was I wrong!
I was admitted and had a bed on one occasion. They chucked me out of bed at 6am the next morning and made me sit in a waiting area for several hours. I'd had no food or drink offered apart from a small cup of tea and a biscuit at 4am. Felt very wobbly with my blood sugars and was told I had to go to the hospital cafe and buy something. Two floors up and a long walk to then be told I couldn't eat or drink there as it was for staff only. I was struggling to find the strength to walk. I've been stressed out with being put adjacent to half naked drug addicts and drunks, ignored for hours by staff. I'm sure the awful experiences of a &e outweigh the benefits of going.😳🥰
I had a different but similar experience following 2nd ablation. First was a "fail". 2nd wasn't classed as failed but went back into AF next day. As advised, like you were I expect, I took myself off to A and E to get an ECG. I came home 3 days later after a miserable hospital stay...over 24 hours in A and E then onto cardiac ward and another failed cardioversion. Like you people were kind but resources stretched.
HR was still 140 on discharge . They just couldn't get it down. Luckily my cardiologist was on call the third day and agreed I could go home with some new drugs and a "keep in touch" proviso. Things settled a bit after that.
fast forward 6 months, recently achieved 9 days of NSR, out of the blue, and feeling loads better. It took its time but feel much more myself now and much more positive about future steps.
I am so sorry to hear what you had to go through but very glad to hear that the tests came up with reassuring results. It is truly terrible and often horrific what patients need to go through these days with the NHS so overstretched. I have had some very long and unpleasant experiences in A&E before in the past so I can empathize. I have also been in the position of needing to use a bed pan which I found to be thoroughly embarrassing, although I am sure the healthcare staff are used to it.
Not being a doctor I wouldn’t want to give medical advice and the doctors will know best but I remember them saying that after the ablation pains and even some rhythm issues can occur while things are healing and for me it did eventually settle down. I hope that the same will happen for you. It is probably good you got it checked out despite the unpleasantness of it all just to be safe and I recommend always checking with a medical professional if unsure.
My emotions were all over the place after my ablation and I think that is completely normal, caused by the physical trauma of it all, stress and possibly not ideal amounts of good sleep. I found meditation very helpful in my case and did (and still do) a lot of praying, which I believe has helped me. I understand that isn’t for everyone though.
Sending my best wishes for your healing and recovery.
I have put in a complaint email to PALS as suggested by nurse in charge.
I wasn't going to as I thought whats the point but I received a 'how did we do' survey from the hospital via text. When I tried to answer it didn't work said I was missing a code
Spurred on I then went onto the PALS link for the hospital. It said to download and complete a complaints form. On downloading you couldn't type into it!
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