Three months post-Bordeaux ablation - so far so good but have question

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to post that September 8 was my three month anniversary of my Bordeaux ablation. So far things and I'm pretty calm and, on the eighth I stopped taking the beta blocker that I had been using. Since stopping this I feel a lot better but have had a few brief palpitations. These have pretty much been a single pac/pvc or maybe a run of two. This is happening maybe once every second day so it is a huge improvement over the daily Afib I was getting.

One problem is that Dr. Hocini would like me to get a Holter done at three, six, nine and 12 months and my family doctor is telling me that it takes several months to have this done and interpreted if he orders it. She may have to settle for an ECG.

Three days ago I did have what felt like afib but it only lasted for 2 to 3 seconds. I'm wondering how concerned I should be about this. It may have just been a run of palpitations

Anyway, quick question: for the ablatees here, and I know I already asked but what kind of follow-up did you guys do? I know Natale wants a six month checkup with a Holter. Is that pretty standard? Is the Holter for 24 hours or longer?

Aside from all that, I'm feeling great! It's wonderful to have my life back and I would go again in a heartbeat.

Monty



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2015 02:16AM by montos.

Good to hear Montos!

Those short runs like that typically are just ectopic runs , do you have an Alivecor?

It's not quite the same as a holter but I would certainly get one if I was you. You could then at least make several recordings a day for the period of time Dr Hocini would like to see and then at least give a decent indication of how stable your HR is.

You can then email them as PDF files straight to Bordeaux. And with any activity you might feel at all like the short runs , having your Alivecor with you all the time can help you catch them.
Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2015 01:11PM by Shannon.

Shannon,

I don't have that monitor though I have been considering getting it. Without an exhaustive search of previous posts, what has the general impression been among forum members in terms of accuracy and reliability?

Monty

Monty,

One comment - Shannon has said Dr. Natale doesn't like them for the reason of getting a good reading. My experience is I get a good reading. I do not use the electrodes in their case attached to the iPhone. I hold them separately so I can easily watch the screen as it is taking the reading. I also always wet (lick) my fingers before I touch the electrodes so I can get good electrical contact.

If you want, PM me and I'll email you examples of a normal reading and afib.

For longer readings (the AliveCor is usually 30 seconds - I think you can set that longer, but it would be a pain to hold it for long periods), I use a Polar H7 heart rate strap with an iPhone app - HRV logger. It records the beat length - the time in milliseconds between "R" peaks in the QRS waveform on the ECG. The phone graphics aren't great for my purpose, but I then, through DropBox, look at the data on an old Polar heart rate graphing program on the laptop. You can then see everything you can as shown in CR 52 and 52a <[www.afibbers.org] <[www.afibbers.org] or from Mark's examples <[www.afibbers.org] I mainly use it for looking at PAC/PVC counts. Afib is obvious, but I don't need it to tell me this. When my mom was alive, I put it on her and could see runs of PAC's & distinguish them from afib. Again, I can be more detailed as to how to do this specifically, if you or anyone else is interested.

George

Whenever I had a holter monitor, is was done right away, sometimes I had to wait several days, as the Cardiologist Office only had so many monitors, and they were already being used. Don't know why it would take several months, unless your Dr. has to borrow one from somewhere, and then send in the results somewhere for analysis. I would suggest going to a local Cardiologist to get the Holter Monitor, not a Family Physician.

Holter's are available new on eBay (from China). They come with analysis software, which is VERY important (worthless without software) <[www.ebay.com] In the past, at least two of our posters purchased their own monitors. Wil Schuemann & PC (Pat Chambers). They have come down in price by an order of magnitude since then - the last 8-10 years. Wil posted on his use extesively. Here is a search on Wil's posts <[www.afibbers.org]

After 10 years of afibing with what I'm sure some would call silent afib, I have learned to detect the unmistakeable onset of afib.Since my bordeaux ablation i experience the odd skipped beat but that is all. No runs of fib or ectopic beats. When you feel the skips learn to ignore them. They go away.

Money well spent I say.

Cheers

Adrian

Thanks Adrian,

I fully agree so far.

Monty