I have been offered, and have accepted, a cryo ablation on next Monday due to a cancellation.I know that I can't drive for a week but realistically what is the recovery period in people's experience? How easy do you need to take it? I am no spring chicken (78).
Common sense tells you that the inside of your heart will have taken a bit of a kicking. Check out the bruising in your groin which has only been used to feed the catheter up to and into your ticker, if that’s black ‘n blue, spare a thought for what the inside of your 78 year old ticker must look like which has just had a lot of (possibly public) money spent on it to improve your quality of life and follow the guidance in the following link.
api.heartrhythmalliance.org...
Good luck…….
I'm on day 17 after my Cryo Ablation and no Spring Chicken either 😀 The first few days was mostly at home doing pretty much nothing. Then a few short walks outside. I tried to do laundry on day 5, but decided didn't have the energy. I did a very light workout with weights around day 8 and regretted it. Stayed in bed, day 9. 😀 Yesterday I did a couple of 15 minute walks at a moderate pace. Today I'm going to take it easier.
You do not want to push too hard, too soon. This is your one opportunity to let your heart heal properly ,so that the ablation has the best chance of succeeding. They told me I could go back to full exercise and activity after 7 days. Ha! I will be happy if I'm back to where I was pre ablation in a month.
So unless you have someone to take care of you for the first week, have shopping and meals prepared in advance because you may not feel like cooking.
And don't forget -- no lifting over 10 pounds for the first 3-4 days, because that groin wound has to heal properly.
Jim
Read the Recovering from an ablation leaflet on here, made by PATIENTS not Dr's. Invaluable and absolutely correct.
good luck! We are all diff entry so hard to generalise. I was 72, and recovering from a traumatic orthopaedic incident and I did fine. I was tired, got a visual aura, more ectopics but the weariness guided my actions and it slowly eased. I think I was tired for a week and wearier than usual for two more. Hard to recall! My groin bruising was very minor and not a problem. I hope yours goes as smoothly as mine, and is successful.
I am now 11.5 weeks post ablation and unlike MJames I took it really easy. I am 74 year old Female so not a spring chicken either.Did very Little for the first week and for the first week didn't suffer much discomfort .I think it was about 4 weeks in I had a lot of discomfort with pain from front to back.I spoke to Arrhythmia nurses but I already guessed it was the heart & even pulmonary veins healing.I started with walks & then bowling matches. I Went back to excerise classes at 8 weeks and found It was too early for me.Planning to return to it next week.I still have the odd days where I can't do something that I could do easily the day before.I get some ectopics on these bad days but not for long.Still in NSR.My aim now is lose weight & increase fitness.
Couldn't be different for males but as a female I needed baggy knickers & trousers for week.
Good luck next week and the procedure is really not too bad.
Kathy
I am on day 4 and had a blip last night, although I had some palps for a few seconds. I had been doing nothing physical but I am in the process of buying a used Motorhome so was getting that sorted and had my repaired car returned again and its still not right so I did too much stressing over things.
I have had chest pain, especially when breathing in deeply and a ache as well which is getting better slowly.
I think I fell asleep during my procedure so dont worry too much, but they wire you up to alot of things.
I didnt have the migraine, but had the ice cream headache, if you remember when you were kids and ate an ice cream too quickly.
My EP said no strenuous exrecise for 2 weeks but I could do any before and Iam only 58.
Good luck
Ditto the advice to take it really easy. You'll be fine, just don't push yourself or overdo anything. I did well after a few weeks, and i'm still improving after 6 months!
As many here say, just take it easy -- nothing strenuous, get lots of rest, etc. A few pointers, though: Be careful bending over as I found it seemed to affect my heart, i.e. much better to squat down to pick something up and using something to support yourself getting back upright. Don't lift anything heavy, and don't overdo it in the garden -- my biggest mistake.
I took it easy for about a week, was kind of tied for at least a few weeks. Best thing I ever did though, so far it’s been a year with no afib☺️
It's just under 2 weeks since I had a RF ablation and I am still taking it quite easy. I find that I'll feel quite tired after walking at easy pace for about 45min, and I don't feel like doing any more than that. That's quite a change considering that I was running at easy pace for between 30min and 60min 3 to 4 times a week up until the procedure! It was recommended that I not drive for a week, but I haven't resumed driving yet as I am still getting random ocular migraines every day or two.
In practice everyone recovers differently and each person has to take it as they find it. I don't know when I will get back to my previous level of activity, but I can tell at this stage that it won't be for at least another few weeks.
I'm afraid it took me 6 months to feel reasonable and almost a year to feel normal and not worry about overdoing it. I seemed to sleep a lot at first. 3 months into convalescence I had my oldest and her family to stay (Christmas) which floored me for a while. I must be a slow healer!
The recovery symptoms vary all over the place. Listen to your body
Around 4 weeks for me to feel anything like normal after mine at the end of March. There's a lot of misconceptions about this procedure and recovery times can vary wildly. I had an appointment with OH at work after my 5 weeks absence, and she told me it's normal to resume normal activities after 3 days. I asked her if she'd actually had one and she said no, so I put her straight. It was almost 2 weeks before I could take full breaths without pain so the 3 days is nonsense IMO, unless you're extremely lucky.
Cryo ablation 
cryo-ablation update
Cryo ablation
RF ablation or Cryo ablation? 
