Ectopic after ablation

[Norfolk_spaniel]

I am now 7 weeks post ablation and still in sinus. However, I have been experiencing some mild heart pain and yesterday was so concerned that I ended up in A&E. Turns out that I am experiencing a lot of ectopic heartbeats, in fact at one time one in 5 heartbeats was ectopic. Has anybody else experienced this and what was the outcome? Is this normal after an ablation? Incidentally, A&E was horrendous. I had blood taken 2 hours after arrival and then had to wait over 5 hours to see a doctor.

[Bailey2004]

Hi, I’m 7 months post ablation for AF and been experiencing ectopics as frequent as 1 in 2 since middle of June. Im currently back on Flecainide and bisoprolol and discussing an ablation for this early next year. Have good spells where don’t really affect me then can have weeks where I’m exhausted with similar symptoms as I had with AF. My EP has said it’s unrelated as mine are ventricular ectopics and possibly had this prior to the AF but didn’t affect me until now. Who knows? Hope they settle for you, I’ve heard they can over time but I’ve had enough already hence deciding to go with the ablation so I can get on with my life now no sign of AF since.

[Jalia]

I've had masses of atrial ectopics since my last ablation 16 months ago. I think lack of sleep has contributed towards this. I've been in fast AF since late Saturday and am in CCU awaiting cardioversion early this morning! Will be interesting to see if this stops ectopics as well.

[BobD Volunteer]

Yes ectopics are common post ablation. Shows the heart is trying to go into AF and failing. Try the slow deep breathing trick. Diaphragm not shoulders and slow to less than six breaths a minute for at least five minutes. Longer if you can spare the time.

[Buttercups22]

Hi there. Following my ablation I still had AF episodes for a while, then they cleared and I had lots of ectopics. They slowly went away too. I think my ectopics were also stress related as I was worrying that AF might have been returning. I found distraction/relaxation with a good book, etc seemed to help ease my ectopics. Hope your ectopics soon ease.

[DawnTX]

I had never heard of it until coming on here as far as the blanking. So from what I can gather what is going on can still be happening is normal right now. We are all so different it’s hard to tell. I did incredible immediately after my ablation as I did with my cardioversion waking up happy and normal for the first time in a long time.

[fairyfeathers]

I had Ablation end of Sept 2022. During the procedure the EP had challenges with high volume of etopics which he stopped eventually with Flecainide. I still suffer with lots of arrhythmia which I find makes me tired. EP wants to make sure I haven’t flipped from Flutter to AF or whether it’s just etopics, so I was given a card guard device 3 days ago to send thro readings to a special telephone line between 9am and 4:30pm. Well I have tried to send my readings thro on 2 separate days but they have all failed! I was told I must not be doing it correctly. My appointment with specialist nurse when I picked up the device was rushed and stressful. She did a recording to test device and I was told off for not being relaxed enough as recording not clear! So I was put on the naughty step🤣. Whole dept was manic and I can quite understand why the staff are so stressed and burnt out. Well today I ended up in tears on the phone with Cardiology when again the device failed. I think she felt sorry for me so I’m back in Cardiology on Saturday to try something else.

Here’s hoping your etopics calm down very soon. I understand how tiring they can be. It’s reassuring that it’s not a return of AF.

[Norfolk_spaniel in reply to fairyfeathers]

Thanks. I have just been listening to an excellent YouTube video about ectopic after ablation. It was reassuring. I found that because I had heart discomfort I became worried it was a heart attack. This made the ectopic worse and it was self perpetuating. I need to relax more and not worry about the ablation.

[fairyfeathers in reply to Norfolk_spaniel]

yes, anxiety and stress are not good when suffering with etopics. I don’t sleep well either and was told this also was not good. It’s early days after our ablation so understandable that we are a little anxious. So all we have to do is chill, not worry and get on with living😀. Something to work on going forward. All the best to you.