Is it OK to have a drink or two after an ablation?

I am not a big drinker, and basically haven't had ANY in years, due to it kicking up my Afib when I did. However, I am heading off on vacation and would really love to be able to have one Pina Colada, or one White Russian a few times during the week. Has anyone who's had an ablation found that they can do that now, or are we done with any drinking forevermore....? And I truly am just talking about 1-2 drinks a night, a few times during the week we are away.

Hi Barb, I recently discussed this topic with Shannon and the gist of his opinion is, I believe, Alcohol is not good for our hearts. It is af trigger number one. If you must, one drink is probably ok. Probably less harmful to you than me because your ablation work has mostly healed. I will be in Italy in May and I might have a drink or two. I have actually lost my taste for alcohol and may have one or two just to be sociable.
Bon Voyage! Dennis

Hey Dennis - I was thinking that if the ablation basically "cured" our Afib, then we should be able to have at least 1-2 drinks on ocassion.... I will probably not have another one for a very long time, but I was picturing myself sipping a Pina Colada down by the water...and it felt good

Maybe I can ask for one with just a little bit of rum......

How are you feeling at this point, Dennis? Hoping you too are mostly healed...~ Barb

Dennis is right Barb,

Of course you 'can' have a drink and some here do so frequently after an ablation and seem to get away with it ... for a while anyway. Occasionally is probably okay but dont go for more than one at a time and only if and when you really want one. It is never a plus for your heart as alcohol is cardio-toxic, but it is apart of many peoples daily cultural experience and thus hard to drop entirey for many I realize. Like Dennis I totally lost the taste for it so it never even crosses my mind any more.

I did drink some lovely wines when living in Amsterdam those four years up until 2010, and sure enough after about a year of periodic embibing and having a couple glasses every couple of days probably averaging close to one glass a day, that is when my episodes, which had been very well controlled with the strategy and no daily heart meds for the prior five years steadily started to become more active again. It took about six months to go from very sporadic short lived episodes to full blown 20 hour rock tests of AFIB and finally flipping into persistent AFIB 2 months and 3 weeks before my index ablation with Dr Natale in Aug 2008.

The flip to persistent AFIB got kick started with a PIP Flec dose turning pro-arrhythmic and flipping me into a terrible one to one flutter, but the night before I had had two glasses of wine which first got that episode going that then converted to persistent AFIB.

After my first ablation I was quiet as a mouse for the first 11 months and then had a couple glasses of wine celebrating a friends birthday in Amsterdam and after getting a little cocky from having been so quiet for so long off all drugs except a low dose verapamil to keep my still elevated post ablation HR lower. I had been gradually adding back in an occasion wine the prior couple of months. The following day after my friends B-day, I was eating some tomato soup at a Dutch restaurant along Keizersgracht canal in the heart of beautiful Amsterdam when BAM I felt like a horse jumped over a fence inside my heart and both arms started buzzing and went completely numb and my heart was racing a mile a minute!

What a let down after thinking I had this whipped. The next day I got my first EVC by Dr Boersma ( one of the top EU EP's who followed up for me while in Holland) after driving myself an hour south of Amsterdam to the town of Nieuwegein, in full high speed flutter that I had brought down from around 190bpm to around 140bpm with a dose of Sotalol I kept handy.

They Cardiobverted me at around 11Pm that night and then released me three hours later and I had to drive all the way back to Amsterdam in the dark night listening to a Dutch news station announce that Michael Jackson had just died from what turned out to be an overdose of Propofol which I had just then had for my cardioversion.

Anyway, I digress. Of course you can have a glass or two here or there, but don't make it a habit and I would start with a very small glass and see how you do over the next couple days, Take extra magnesium and potassium as well as Bvitamns and C too before bed as alcohol depletes those as well.

Enjoy your trip Barb and with a little caution and these steps you should be fine. My story should be all that is needed to keep people from getting too cocky with alcohol I trust.

Shannon

Barb, I cannot believe how well I feel. With the open heart surgery behind me and the AF/flutter firmly under control i feel normal. Hardly any unusual beats. My heart is in the background and is hardly noticible. It feels like it did 8 or 9 years ago before all this started.

Pina Coladas on the beach sounds good to me. . Enjoy your vacation, your deserve it! Dennis

Barb

After his ablation in Bordeaux, BarryG was told by Dr. Hocini not to drink any wine - unless it was a good one!

Gill

The thing Ive noticed about many EP's, even very good ones, is that their strength isn't always in the nuances of trigger management either before or after an ablation. They generally know about the big triggers like alcohol but most often they give general rules of thumb in this regard that lacks the real world nuance of experience that those of us who have been through the mill and know what a trigger triggering feels like may be able to better share on these issues.

I definitely wouldn't risk it if you've had a bumpy blanking period, at least until you've had a good six months of clear sailing past the blanking time.

That is prudent advice. Some can get by with it others won't, but unless your heart is rock solid stable I'd keep it at a bare minimum if I was you until it is fully stable feeling. Even if that might require a touch up ablation to pull off.

Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2014 10:49PM by Shannon.

Thanks Shannon - if I have any at all, it will be with very little alcohol and rarely. Your story did indeed give me pause...

Glad you are feeling so well, Dennis!

Now back to packing...still much to do!

See you all back here soon ~ Barb

Quick question.

If the ablation is supposed to fix the heart misfiring, then why can't you drink post-ablation?

Hi Erich.

Good question, a perfect ablation will fix your heart and allow drinking like a fish ... for a while. But AFIB is a progressive condition and there is strong evidence that the metabolic changes and processes that led to you being more prone to AFIB to begin with continue on even after a successful ablation. Think of an ablation as setting up a barrier against existing 'confirmed' trigger areas such that they can't sustain and arrhythmia once those lesions are fixed transmurally for good. However, unless every square inch of your heart is either ablated or isolated fully and permanently ( and that is a tall order), its possible for the underlying process to migrate to other areas there were not active in the first ablation.

This is one reason why the Natale and past Bordeaux method of a more step wise approach, addressing wider areas beyond the PVI along has been far more successful that the more reticent piecemeal approach where EPs will continue to just re-ablate the PV's over and over when the last one doesn't work and if they venture beyond the PVs at all they do so so sparingly as to wind up playing a long term game of Whackamole inside you heart trying to address only one or two triggers they find each time and not think ahead about building a solid corral around larger areas that will almost certainly become active down the road if they do not.

In any event, alcohol being a cardiotoxic substance that over time can negatively impact the pacing cells lining the inside of your heart, while you certainly could get buy once you have a really solid ablation on board, but you have to ask yourself the question: 'Is drinking this substance really worth the risk of potentially encouraging the beast to return again?

Once a solid lasting ablation is on board, of course you can imbibe some in real moderation without much likelihood of harm, but you also might discover as many of us have that you can lose the desire for it as well over time and overall you'll be better off for it. People talk about the benefits of modest alcohol as well but those same benefits can easily be had with more benign anti-oxidant supplements as well, many of them as extracts from grapes and grape seeds, and even coffee bean extracts, not surprisingly.

The p[oint is that, just cause you had a first ablation and is holding nicely for now, doesn't necessarily mean it will always be so. The more you can fit comfortably into your life habits that support a calm heart and good electrolyte balance and not put added stress on those systems, the better you will be supporting you ablation too.

So this is not a dogmatic moratorium and no one is going to call you on the carpet for having a few beers or some wine. Everyone will have to discover for themselves how they want to handle this issue. But I can tell you from experience, its very disappointing to realize in hindsight that you definitely helped spring board arrhythmia back into your life again after a big index ablation much earlier than it likely would have returned if it would have returned at some point anyway, by drinking too much too soon.

After a second procedure if you had any activity at all after you first ablation, and that second one was rock solid from day one, then you have more leeway, but still by then you may find you don't have to hankering for it any longer which is a net good thing over all for your heart health.

Shannon

Barb,
I enjoy few beers on the weekends, maybe a port too or even a Scotch. It's different now the desire to have just one more is longer there, maybe subconsciously I'm afraid this will lead to an attack. Natale told me all in moderation.

John