My brother (age 65) has had occasional afib episodes (and tachy episodes) for years. He was diagnosed a while back with WPW. Is being sent for ablation tomorrow. Anyone else have WPW? And was ablation curative for you, if so?
Any advice for ablation recovery? Do's and dont's? My brother is not one to do much reading on medical issues, so he won't look into this himself. He lives alone in the forest on an island (Gabriola). I want to make sure he does okay post-ablation.
kim
Hi Kim!
Great to see you on here but sorry to hear about your brother.
I had to give in (pass out without) to full time meds and scheduled for ablation in April.
Just to update you.
Ive heard about WPW - could it be familial? Were you tested?
I wish the best for him.. and sorry I cant help.
Interested to hear what you find out from others.
WPW is congential so conceivebly there could be a hereditary component. as far as i know the only "testing" for it is when the cardiologist views your ekg from some arrhythmic or tachy episode. If you have WPW, it shows a very distinct recognizable pattern. i've had a couple of of EKGs done for afib episodes and no one ever commented on that. In fact once I even asked - I said my brother has WPW, do I too? And the ER doctor said no, this isn't WPW in my case.
interesting…
All I know is that when I went for my ablation study there was a young boy in there with me and he was having the same thing done. I heard the doctor tell his parents they just wanted to do that study on his heart via ablation to test to see if he had WPW or not …
so I thought that’s how they tested for it…
oh that's interesting... maybe there is some further testing for it. i know my brother was just diagnosed off what the cardiologist saw on ekg - apparently more than once, different episodes over different years.
Hello Kim! You may find it helpful to read our 'Recovering from Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation' information sheet here: api.heartrhythmalliance.org... our sister charity has information on WPW here: heartrhythmalliance.org/aa/... Please feel free to contact our Patient Services Team if you or your brother have any questions +44 1789 867 501 or email: info@heartrhythmalliance.org
Thank you very much for this! 
Hi Kim,
It was many decades ago that I was told I had WPW. The doctor showed me what I've always thought was an ECG reading and he pointed out the odd angle/curve in the heart wave. However, when I've inquired since then, I'm told I don't have it. It's always puzzled me. Not much help, I'm afraid.
Best wishes to your brother. He's fortunate to have you looking out for him.
well this has been part of my confusion too. Years ago my brother was taken to a clinic on gabriola where he lives, in afib, and put on the ekg machne, and it automatically displayed a statement of Wolff-parkinson-white. so it wasn't even a human who deduced that. then later a cardiologist said, no this isn't WPW. But now on these most recent trips to ER the thinking is once again that it's WPW. If it were me, I would want to be having detailed conversation with a cardiologist to have that doctor convince me it was WPW. But my brother is not like that. He just wants to feel a doctor is taking care of it. So he is now down in Victoria with an ablation planed on MOnday I believe. It will probably be fine. But I dont' really see how they can even ablate him properly or effetively if they don't know whether he has WPW, because that's a very specific location on heart - the AV node i believe.
I had a recent ablation for AFIB but my EP did a EP study at the time of ablation when I told her I had tachycardia in my 40's (and they labeled them related to panic attacks.) Turns out I had the extra accessory pathway (WPW) and they ablated it. I ended up having two ablations at the time as they also did CYRO ablation for afib. I had a rough recovery but only because of the migraines I suffered from for over 30 days. I was told the ablation for WPW cures it although I don't have tachycardia anymore, but I did read having afib with WPW could be very risky in some cases.
Glad you don't have tachy anymore. Sounds like it worked!
I actually haven't had it for decades that I know of. But I'm glad EP got ablated the extra pathway.
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