First episode of afib

Monday I had an ablation for inappropriate sinus tachycardia and atrial tachycardia. When they were finishing up I went into afib and they had to shock me to get me into NSR My question is do I now have a chance of afib happening again? A few times I have had a fish flopping in my chest feeling. I’ve never had that feeling before.
Thank you.

Yes, you have a chance of it happening again, but afib following any ablation is common and often transient. Did your EP not explain the blanking period to you? Any sort of atrial arrhythmia for the next 3 months may be a result of the procedure and shouldn't be viewed as being permanent. Make sure to tell your EP about it. He may want to put you on an antiarrhythmic and/or beta blocker during the blanking period.

I’m on beta blockers still metoprolol and also on Corlanor. No one ever told me there was a chance of afib during or after the procedure. This was when they had all caths out of me.

Afib is a side effect of Corlanor, affecting 5-8% of the patients who take it. So the afib could be a result of the procedure, the drug, or both.

Welcome Lemonpledge, Atrial tachycardia and atrial flutter can both be strong precursors to AFIB whether or not you recently had an ATachy or AFlutter ablation.

Both CTI Flutter and AVNRT form of Supraventricular Tachycardia are notorious as ‘canaries in the coal mine’ signaling highly likely eventual progression to AFIB in the LA.

With regard to the three month blanking period observed for AFIB ablation, such a blanking period is only inclusive of a CTI Flutter or SVT/inappropriate sinus tachycardia ablation when either of those typically much simpler right Atrial anatomical ablations is done as part of a more extensive left atrial AFIB ablation using PVI as well. And increasingly often these days the anatomical PVI ... as the cornerstone of nearly all AFIB ablation methods ... now includes Non-PV trigger detection and ablation as well as the PVI.

Not infrequently, an index AFIB ablation will also include a CTI Flutter ablation too, either to address concurrently detected typical CTI Flutter, or just prophylactically to make insure that such a CTI Flutter does not appear later and require a repeat ablation just for the Flutter.

However, when performed as separate stand-alone ablations, neither CTI Flutter ablation, nor AVNRT ABL, nor inappropriate sinus tachy ABL as stand-alone procedures require a blanking period to be observed (and certainly not a 3 month one) as is the standard accepted duration blanking period observed after an AFIB ablation.

These much easier and shorter anatomical-only CTI Flutter /AVNRT SVT ablations performed alone should have such a high initial ‘one and done’ cure rate ... in the roughly 95% success rate range with these easier right Atrial procedures ... that there is simply no need for a long follow up blanking period as there is for the more complex and extensive lesion sets used in AFIB ablation (mostly done in the LA) to reach fully mature scar formation and thus allow the AFIB ablation to finally show its full impact on AFIB suppression and termination.

Hope that clarifies your questions Lemonpledge. And yes you very much could be prone to more AFIB as Carey noted above ... time will surely tell.

Best wishes,
Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2017 08:19AM by Shannon.