Home from ablation with new blood thinner

I am home and recovering from my ablation at Mayo Clinic in Rochester with Dr. Friedman. I am happy to report that all went went well. Now I will just wait and see......I was sent home with the new blood thinner(dabigatran) so that I do not have to go in for blood levels. My nurse tells me I am the first one that they have sent home with this so I will hope all goes well with it. I was very impressed with Dr. Friedman and he was open to my questions-one of them being the use of dabigatran. At first his answer was that Mayo wanted to wait a while longer to wait until more time had passed with the use of the dabigatran but apparently, after learning I have not been on warfarin at all, decided I was a prime candidate. I'm delighted since, otherwise, I would have been having to give myself a heparin shot twice a day for a few days and then on to the warfarin and frequent checks for blood levels. I hope this will be a wise (and healthy) decision. I also asked Dr. Friedman about prescribing steroids per the article posted on this board about two weeks ago. He was open to it but decided he would like to see a larger study and also felt that, since we want to create scar tissue in the ablated areas and steroids inhibit healing that we might defeat our purpose--hopefully I got his explanation correct. So, he decided no on this and I respect his decision. I was sent home with the dabigatran-150 mg twice per day--my insurance covered all but $50. I also have Atenolol 25 mg once per day (Dr Friedman sees a lot of patients have faster heart rates for a month or two after ablation so uses the Atenolol). I also have Omeprazole 40 mg once per day to avoid acidity and Dr. wants to avoid any irritation of the esophagus since it runs so close to the heart. I have been taking HCL for low acid so hope the Omeprazole doesn't give me problems. Dr Friedman only uses catheters in the groin area so I didn't have a neck catheter. He prefers to avoid this since it runs so close to the esophagus and lung. Time will tell but so far the heart feels good. I know I def had plenty of inflammation as it was painful to breathe through last night. Today is much better so hopefully I'm on my way to healing

Wonderful news, Teri! Thank you. I've been hoping for just such a positive report from you. Take good care of yourself!

Erling

Teri--I am so pleased to read your report of your ablation. May you have a smooth recovery. Remember to baby yourself!

Louise

Sounds like things went well for you Teri. Enjoy that Normal rhythm.

Best wishes

Adrian

Good luck Teri!

Sounds like you had a great doctor also!

Hope you are back to normal fast with NSR!

Michael

Teri - Great news. Thanks for letting us know. Now, relax and take care of your heart and yourself while you heal over the next several months.
Be well, Jackie

Good news, Teri. And as everyone has said, take good care of yourself and don't try to do too much too soon.

Laura

Thanks to all of you for your well wishes. It is so great to have the support of the board and also the invaluable information

Hi Teri, just checking in to see how you are doing in your recovery--well, I hope. What do you think of Dabigatran so far?

Louise

Hi Louise--I'm doing pretty well thank you. I believe the Dabigatran is going well--however it's hard to know since there is no blood testing so I just assume the blood is good (I sure hope so). I did have a little setback last evening as I think I overdid things. My instructions sent home with me by my Dr instructed me "don't be sedentery" so since I sat at a desk for a good portion of the day, I took a five minute walk and ended up almost fainting. I felt really good up until then and, fortunately, didn't end up in Afib so that was good. I still feel really weak today so I will lay low and go very slow. Otherwise, knock on wood, the Afib has been mostly quiet so we'll see. Thanks for checking