ablation if not in afib

[Tidbits]

if you are not in Afib and they must induce Afib, then do they cardiovert you to bring you out of Afib?

[BobD Volunteer]

Ablating the rogue cells should do that anyway but it is not uncommon to be cardioverted before the procedure ends. My understanding is tha regardless of whether you are in AF or not, the EP may attempt to trigger it to check he/she has found all the relevant areas.

[Tidbits in reply to BobD]

Thank you, BobD, for your response. I was cardioverted 5+ months ago, and have not been in Afib since. It sounds like a lot of trauma for your heart! I am afraid of going back into Afib or feeling worse after the ablation. I am wondering if I should go through with the ablation since I feel great since cardioversion. He plans to use the newer Pulsed Field technique rather than RF heat.

[Buffafly]

Yes, my report said they applied ‘pacing’ to initiate AF after burning and then treated more areas. I had two cardioversions during the procedure as well.

[Tidbits in reply to Buffafly]

Thank you Buffafly, for your response. TWO cardioversion! How was your recovery?

[Buffafly]

It was ok, I did have pain in my arm a couple of times which I think was caused by the CV as I have a fused spine and deformed neck and I had a small pericardial effusion seen when they did a post ablation echo the next day. I took the leaflet handed out at the time seriously and overdid my activity massively (my ablation was December 15 and I am the family Christmas host!) But all worked out ok in the end.

[Tidbits in reply to Buffafly]

It sounds like you took it all in stride and I am glad it all eventually worked out for you. I hope that you had a nice Christmas, you were very motivated, which is great!

[Mugsy15]

You seem to be under the impression that the surgeon will cause your heart to go into AF during ablation, and are concerned about that because you are very happy to be AF-free and don't want anything done that may encourage the condition to come back.

Please relax, that's not what happens. Their pacing techniques identify cells which may be prone to firing out rogue signals so they can be ablated. I remember that during my procedure there was a few minutes towards the end which felt like I had a TENS machine on my chest, set to 'pulse'. If you aren't familiar with that, it was runs of fast thumps with pauses. Nothing to fret about.

Before the ablation I was in persistent AF. Three years later I'm AF-free and if it returns I'll have another without hesitation.

Best of luck with yours!