I'm a long time lurker on this forum, and I want to thank everyone for all of the wonderful posts and information shared. It has been very helpful to me. For 4 years I had paroxysmal afib that was progressively worsening, but I always self converted within 1-6 hours. I was on no drugs. Just before Thanksgiving 2018, a switch flipped and my afib would not go away. After much trial and error, I am now taking 50 mg of metropolol 3xs per day, 150 mg. of propafenone 3xs per day, and Eliquis. Oh, and while I was wearing a monitor, I had 59 pauses some of which were as long as 8 seconds, and much to my dismay, I now have a pacemaker that was implanted in December 2018 (by the way, I called Natale's office for a third opinion on this, and he said I should have the pacemaker put in). I'm the last person anyone would expect this to happen to. I'm 57 years old. I've always been active and fit. I eat very healthy, I'm not overweight, I have great blood test numbers, and my echocardiogram showed that I have a normal heart. I called Natale's office in early December (before the pacemaker) to schedule an ablation. I was accepted. At the time, I had no insurance and was going to do a self pay. It took St. David's a while to get those numbers together, and in the meantime, I was lobbying for health insurance with my employer, which I ultimately got. Natale's office didn't want to schedule the ablation until the self pay/insurance issue was resolved. It has been, and I'm now waiting very impatiently for them to call me with a date for the ablation. I feel like I've been waiting forever, and based on information I've read here, it looks like I may not get in until the summer. That would not be so bad, except we are having a difficult time lowering my heart rate. With changes to the dosage of propafenone, I seem to be staying in rhythm consistently, but my heart rate at rest is high 90s low 100s; it's around 84 before I get out of bed. I can't do any form of aerobic exercise (even walking doesn't seem to work so well), and when I do, my HR stays elevated for quite awhile afterward; I also get short of breath with minimal exertion so I stick with yoga and light weight training. I'm close to maxing out on the metropolol dosage, and increasing it doesn't seem to help anyway. I was taking a small amount of Digoxin (I know all the downsides and I resisted, but tried it because my HR wasn't going down as much as it needed to on the Metropolol), but I had to quit taking it because it was causing me to have gastrointestinal issues. It did bring my HR down into the 80s, but it's not even an option for me now. So here I am with pretty high heart rates, which don't bother me too much as long as I don't move around too fast or too long, but I'm concerned about the long term effects. My cardiologist wants to get them lower, and I'm waiting to hear from him today on where we go from here. I thought if the irregularity went away, my HR would go down, but that hasn't happened (that's how it used to work, and my HR was around 60 at rest). I'm looking for some insight from some of you who may have experienced something similar. I know everyone is different, but I value any information or suggestions you may have. I'm praying Natale will be able to help me, and I hope soon. There is no way I would have an ablation done by anyone else. Sorry for the lengthy post. Trust me, I left a lot out in the interests of trying to be as brief as possible.
Addendum: Right after I posted this, I got an email from St. David's, I'm scheduled for May 31st. It's a ways off, but at least I have a date.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/2019 02:37PM by Deela.