Scheduled for Natalie on 8/23

After following the forum posts and the almost universal praise for Dr. Natalie, I've decided to have another ablation. Let's hope ablation number 7 in the charm. Although it may be 7 & 8 since Dr. Natalie said it may take two attempts. He switched me from Pradaxa to Xeralto and I'm going to have the procedure done in San Francisco.

Bruce S

HI Bruce - did Dr. Natale perform the first 6 ablations? I would think not, or you likely would be done after 1-2. I wish you much luck and expect that you will find the relief your are looking for - finally!

Keep us posted ~ Barb

Hi Barb, no I am an itinerant ablatee. 2, 2, 2 with 3 different doctors. My odyessy began in 2002 and my last one was in 2009. This will be my first with Natalie and after all of the positive comments on this forum regarding Natalie I am allowing a bit of optimism to build. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks,

Bruce

Good luck, Bruce. You are persistent. May #7 be the charm!

Ha..no pun intended. Persistent or stupid. And definitely too willing to have faith in certain doctors.

Hi BruceS,

Great news... You are truly in the best possible hands for a man in your shoes with 7 priors ... sounds like a rap sheet at the police station Ha !

In my many visits to Dr Natale's offices in both Austin and San Francisco over the years I've had the chance to meet and compare war stories with easily a couple dozen people at least waiting to see him, either as a first appointment or for follow up post ablation.

So many of these folks have made there way to Dr N via referral or through a board like ours after having had multiple ablations that still didn't do the trick and were there to either have Dr N repair faulty ablation methods used in a lot of cases and/or just help buy them as much NSR as possible through addressing often more chow hong cases the right way and with the skill and experience to get the job done.

I recall one fellow from Berkeley who had the first of 8 ablations back in 1999 in Berkeley by an EP who was clearly shooting from the hip and that made him much worse. A couple more ablations were done in the early 2000s in Palo Alto also left him with more flutter on top of ongoing AFIB and hard to control with drugs.

This guy, through desperation, had 3 more through 2009 for a total of 6 by other EPs before he finally found Dr Natale in 2008. I met him in 2010 in San Fran a year after his second and final of 2 ablations Dr N said he would need to first repair the 'work' from the prior ablations and the second one was to switch off the flutter driver.. At that time, a year after both Natale ablations had been done, he was there for his one year follow up and graduation in perfect NSR for a whole year. I heard this past February 2013 that he was still doing great with no arrhythmia at 4 years after his last ablation.

I had already had my first ablation with Dr Natale in Austin two years prior when I first spoke with this fellow, so he was preaching to the choir when he so enthusiastically sung the praises of Dr N and his team for the night and day difference he experienced compared to the long term results of his first 6 ablations. Even after the first ablation under Natale, which was mostly repair work, he felt worlds better and didn't have to call an ambulance once or more a month as he had after the fifth one, and in spite of still needing the flutter work done in his second Dr N ablation and last one overall. After that last one, he said he instantly knew it was all over and that his heart had been rock solid ever since.

In any event, such a large part of Dr Natale's practice is on very challenging repair cases so he is right up your alley for tracking down the last remaining real culprits .. Quite possibly in the LAA, and taking care of business for the long term.

And Barb, while I don't know his full track record , of course, I have never heard of anyone who started with Natale and used only him needing more than 3 ablations to be well done and fully stable. And only one of the very many That Im familiar with needed that third true touch up.. All the others have either been finished with one main ablation followed by a touch up or were truly one and done for the long term as far as I know. That's very impressive especially considering the difficulty of so many of his cases.

Shannon



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2013 09:57PM by Shannon.

I had to chuckle for a minute Shannon when I read the end of your message which started with "And Barb..." - I had forgotten I had posted on here too and was just reading through this and thought "How does Shannon know I'll be reading this post?"...Haha...Hey, it's late!

Always reassuring to hear good statistics - thanks for thinking to add that here too.

I hope you feel more reassured too, Bruce Shannon know a LOT about all of this!

Good night friends ~ Barb

Shannon, thank you for your post. It made me feel more optimistic. I've never been particularly apprehensive before surgery, except for a brief "what am I doing" moment before they put me under, but for some reason this time is different.