Ablation scheduled

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WandaW

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 9, 2011
Messages
78
Location
Minneapolis MN
Good News, The interventional Cardiologist I saw today feels that I have typical Atrial flutter and I will have an Ablation next Tues. Then I have about 4 more weeks and I am supposed to go back to work. I will be glad to go back to Cardiac Rehab and walking in the neighborhood. I have put on a few pounds with all this inactivity, not smoking real cigarettes, and no diet pop, I think I need to walk alot of miles. Thank you for all the info and support during this crazy period of my life.
 
Sorry I was right Wanda, but my ablation for A-Flutter was a breeze (at least I thought it was). I had it at the end of June, 2010 and haven't had another episode since then. It was basically like a cath but I was more sedated. Mine only took 2 hours from start to finish...I guess it was not too complicated. As I said in your other thread your symptoms and my symptoms sounded exactly alike. Hopefully you will have a simple procedure and come out of it feeling much better. They wheeled me in with a HR of 130 and wheeled me out with a HR of 75. Good luck and I hope you are feeling better by Tuesday afternoon. :)
 
Good luck with the ablation. I too had it done during my AVR in October and so far so good.
 
thank you for all the support and information, It is hard to stay quiet, but everyone has really chipped in to make sure I am! Today my neighbors pulled out the 2 dying bushes in front of my house and helped clean up the flower beds so my daughter and I can plant them in a month. I have NO business whining, but man is it hard to sit and watch everyone else get to do stuff. Now if I could find someone to volunteer to clean up the kitchen......
 
I had a somewhat successful ablation about 8 weeks ago. My problem wasn't A-fib, that I have avoided to this point. I couldn't be sedated because every time they did the arrhythmia quit. The worst part was laying still for 4 hours. My shoulder and back hurt badly from laying still but other than that and the fact that I ALWAYS have bleeding problems afterward it wasn't too bad.
 
I have Atrial Flutter. Will do everything I can to avoid an ablation. Magnesium supplements (Natural Calm is the brand) has helped reduce it quite a bit since I started taking it a month ago. Read books by Sherry Rogers, one in particular that I like is titled "Is Your Cardiologist Killing You".

Best of luck in your search for great health. I do have friends who had successful ablations and would not have done it any other way, I just choose a different path.
 
I have Atrial Flutter. Will do everything I can to avoid an ablation. Magnesium supplements (Natural Calm is the brand) has helped reduce it quite a bit since I started taking it a month ago. Read books by Sherry Rogers, one in particular that I like is titled "Is Your Cardiologist Killing You".

Best of luck in your search for great health. I do have friends who had successful ablations and would not have done it any other way, I just choose a different path.

Herb,

Two questions:

Would you do everything possible to avoid ablation? Do you not believe it would be the quickest and most long lasting solution to treating your A-Flutter?

By reducing it quite a bit what do you mean? I didn't realize you could reduce A-Flutter? So you reduced it but didn't get rid of it? What are your symptoms now (be specific as in numbers) compared to when you were first diagnosed with A-Flutter.

I DO NOT want people to get false hopes of curing A-Fib/A-Flutter because of a book and magnesium supplements. I am not saying it may help prevent these problems, but if you are in A-Fib/A-Flutter and they are not "just episodes" magnesium supplements are not going to bring you out of it. Show me proof of magnesium supplements bringing people out of CHRONIC (meaning continuous) A-Fib/A-Flutter and I will openly apologize for my remarks.

If you respond to my post you need to have hard facts not just the advertisement for the mag supplement or the book. Yes I can be an azz, but at the same time I have been a member here for over 7 years and I feel it is my duty to protect the other members here from what may do them harm. If you read all of the posts in this thread you read that I had chronic A-Flutter and had ablation. I like to gamble a bit, and I am willing to bet everything I have that magnesium supplements would not have brought me out of my A-Flutter and back into perfect rhythm like ablation did.

BTW since you said the magnesium supplements reduced your A-Flutter in the last month, does that mean you are still in A-Flutter just not as bad?
 
Would you do everything possible to avoid ablation?

Do you not believe it would be the quickest and most long lasting solution to treating your A-Flutter?

By reducing it quite a bit what do you mean?

I didn't realize you could reduce A-Flutter?

So you reduced it but didn't get rid of it? What are your symptoms now (be specific as in numbers) compared to when you were first diagnosed with A-Flutter.

does that mean you are still in A-Flutter just not as bad?

Well Brian since you said you can be an azz I'll reply somewhat in kind. You need to learn to count LOL. That is more than two questions.

First I am not advertising a book. I could care less if you buy it, read it or have an ablation, as long as people are happy with their choices. Like most people here I am sharing what I am doing and learning as I go through life with an artificial heart valve and all the related symptoms and conditions. What I like about Dr Rogers (Yes she is a medical doctor) is that she references all of her statements with research from journals that are the standards for all medicine and this is not quack research. Some of the stuff comes from the Mayo Clinic, Harvard etc.

Now to your questions. No and let me make that an emphatic NO for you. I do not believe that correcting the underlying conditions that have led to my A-flutter will be the quickest. An ablation would probably take care of this cardiac symptom in short order, I do concede that to anyone who has or chooses ablation.

Yes I do believe it will be the longest lasting. Correcting the underlying conditions (once discovered) will lead to a healthy heart. Since ablation only deals with the condition or symptom at the time. How many people have had ablation for one condition then a year or two later have another ablation for another arrhythmia. My goal is to have a healthy heart not to simply continue my life with fewer and fewer parts that God gave me in the first place.

By reducing it quite a bit what I mean is that I do not feel the effects nearly as often. So for facts (these are based on personal experience and not documented in any journals or supported by statistics). Prior to taking Mg supplements (I've added cod-liver oil to that regimen too) I was in A-flutter most of the time. Every day almost every hour I felt that "frog" in my throat or upper chest like a stuck hiccup. My pulse felt like it was rolling like waves rather than a normal thump thump. Most importantly when I walked my dogs I was perfectly content with the pace of my 16 year old lab. Waiting for her was my comfortable pace since any quicker left me out of breath. More than a few times this past year, my wife would be waiting on me because I was the one that needed to catch my breath. After a week of Mg. when I checked my pulse the waves were replaced with the thump about half of the time (my estimate). The frog in my throat upper chest is so infrequent now that I only notice it about once or twice every two or three days and it lasts just a few hours as opposed to lasting for days at a time and that feeling being the norm. Lastly I now take my dogs home after their walk and take a walk at my normal quicker pace several times a week. Two months ago I had given up the idea (at the time) of a brisk two mile walk. Now its my norm again. I do not stop in two miles to catch my breath either.

I know that I am still in A flutter for two reasons 1) I can feel it occassionally 2) I have had an EKG in the past month along with an echo (three months earlier) to confirm this. The echo 3 monts ago also revealed bigemine (sp?). While I believe I am on the right path I will not abandon diagnostics that reveal what is going on. I also am not abandoning medication until I get all the causes taken care of. I am taking the prescriptions that were recommended until the A flutter is gone. As far as the not as often I think I already answered that.

I did not realize that one could reduce or eliminate A-flutter, A-fib etc without ablation, transplant etc either until I started down this path.

So Brian that is my story. I hope my "facts" were acceptable but if not so be it. Thanks for the opportunity to explain myself. I choose a different path than most. Not just medically but other areas of life too. Most just say Oh that's just the way Herb is, so I mean it when I say thanks for the challenge. Here's my challenge to you. Buy Sherry Rogers book "Is your Cardiologist Killing You" or "The High Blood Pressure Hoax" and read thoroughly. Check her references too. If after you have read them and believe that this is witchcraft, new age mumbo jumbo or snake oil then contact me. I'll buy them back from you plus pay you an additional $10 including all your S&H. Send me a PM and I'll give you my mailing address for you to send the books and to repeat myself, I will pay you the full price paid (up to full retail) plus your S&H (including to me) and an additional $10 for putting up this azz. You can order these books on Amazon or at www.prestigepublishing.com

Best of luck with your health
have fun
Herb
 
First off my apologies to Wanda for "hi-jacking" her post by my long answers to Bryan's "Two" questions. I will start another post to continue my story. Wanda I wish you the best of luck and I do hope that your treatment is successful.

Oh and Bryan, Just to be clear......I do not believe that I can alleviate or cure my A-flutter with Mg supplements alone. I am on a path to discover all that is causing this. There could be other nutritional deficiencies such as copper, manganese, etc. There could be toxins including heavy metals or something else. So for me this is going to take some time, maybe a year or more.

have fun
Herb
 
Herb PM'd me and this is my response. I am not copying his original PM out of respect but I am posting my response because I would have posted the same thing here whether it was a PM or not. I admit that I made a few edits but they were for spelling and grammatical reasons.

Yes and your answers were bullchit. If your recommendation was so great you would not have "reduced" your A-Flutter you would have been relieved of it. The ablation RELIEVED me of my A-Flutter...not reduced it. It may help prevent A-Fib/Flutter and it may help with the symptoms as well, but it WILL NOT CURE YOU unless you may happen to have sporadic episodes. Don't give people who have chronic A-Fib/Flutter false hope that there is something "beyond" the traditional method to get them back into normal sinus rhythm. Not only does it give them false hope but it could endanger their lives. I am all for new treatments that will eliminate invasive treatments or medications that could be dangerous, but I am just as against giving advice to people that has not been medically proven to be true. If magnesium had been medically proven to eliminate A-Fib or A-Flutter then there would be no reason for the other methods because magnesium would be safer, less expensive, and work as well as the other methods right? So it must be a conspiracy so that doctors can charge paitents / insurance companies more to do these expensive procedures or put them on expensive medications that need monitoring. I am sorry but I am calling your bluff here. You still have not given me any data from your sources that show that any methods you mention will cure A-Fib/A-Flutter at all much less better than traditional treatment.

BTW I know this is a PM but I am going to post it on the threads in question as well because I would type the same thing there so why not just copy it? Like I said I have been a member here for a long time and I feel an obligation to speak up when I need to. I believe wholeheartedly that magnesium and other methods work well in preventing A-Fib/A-Flutter, and they may even help people who only have occasional bouts of it, but I absolutely do not believe that magnesium will bring anyone out of chronic A-Fib/A-Flutter.
 
So Herb is your suggestion for Wanda to cancel her ablation and start a nutritional program including all of the supplements you mentioned?

If so why?

If not why?
 
I just wanted to apologize to Herb in responding to him in the way I did. While we seem to have a difference of opinion concerning this matter I should have kept the debate more civil.
 
I also want to apologize to Wanda as this is probably the last thing you need to read right before you go in for your ablation. Obviously I think you know where I stand and that I think you are doing the right thing, and I think you are going to instantly feel so much better when they finish your ablation...at least that was my experience and that is what I am hoping for you.
 
hJ63BC

hJ63BC

Thats okay, I am an Occupational Therapist and understand why Ablations do work so well for A Flutter, not so much for A Fib. I am an avid vitamin taker, used to rep for a company that I still purchase the products from, but for me I need to end this errant electrical cycle that has developed in my irritated heart after my OHS. I feel fortunate not to need a pacemaker, which is also a possibility after my kind of surgery. The A Flutter scares me, alters my every activity during the day. I am looking forward to a shower that takes the usual time instead of 30 minutes because I need to sit on my shower bench and catch my breath. I need to get back to work and build up my stamina, I can hardly WAIT to start this ablation tomorrow morning. We all need to choose our own path, and I am grateful for my medical team and having this option. Wish me luck!!
 
Wow, what a day, I have never been hooked up to so many electrodes since my sleep study. My ablation worked (so far) my heart rate is down from 150 to 90 tonight and should continue to decrease alittle more. I CAN BREATH!. I couldn't walk from the parking ramp in this AM so my mother in law dropped me at the door where I sat and waited for her. After my ablation I took 3 walks with the nurse and easliy walked back out to the car in the ramp, and NO shortness of breath. I am sooooo grateful and excited. I have to take it easy for a few days so my incision heals well and then I am back in Cardiac rehab next week and back on the path to recovery so I can go back to work, work in my yard, walk, clean my house, shop ETC. This was alot like an angiogram and I slept through the process. Not a bad experience at all and no pain today. Thanks for all your info and support, I as also gratedful to have found this wonderful community.
 
Hi Wanda,

Glad things worked out. I assume by now the yard is in order and the house spotless!
 
Unfortunatly, my yard still needs some work, I did kneel on my garden foam pad and pull out alittle Creeping Charlie along the edge of my flower garden, felt great at the time, but was very stiff the next day. I am working on the house slowly as my daughter is moving home for the summer this weekend as she completes her sophmore year of collage. Her brother and I can live with more clutter then she can so I am pacing myself. The problem is I have sold some jewelry that I make and I need to get busy and make some more. I think financially that trumps cleaning house, What do you think?
 
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