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Re: Noninvasive Heart Mapping System Speeds Arrhythmia Diagnosis - 5 months ago

Thanks, everyone. His passing was amazing. He went out on his own terms, but with a body that might have kept him alive another six months...in bed or in a wheelchair, but he had other acute issues that made life truly miserable. We had 20 people of all ages there, including his four children and their spice. As he was being administered the first of many syringes, he said aloud, 'Into t

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Re: Noninvasive Heart Mapping System Speeds Arrhythmia Diagnosis - 5 months ago

Thanks, George. I'm running at half pace these days. Lost my father to MAID last Friday, and the weeks leading up to it were demanding and hard. Lack of sleep makes a person dull. I appreciate the link.

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Re: Noninvasive Heart Mapping System Speeds Arrhythmia Diagnosis - 5 months ago

Shucks, I can't read it without logging into another platform, which I am quite loath to do.

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Re: Radiation-Induced Cardiac Toxicity - 5 months ago

I have never seen these devices. Yeeesh! I agree with Carey that the hapless sales staff would be the ones most worrisome. Multiple exposures each day would/should mean that almost all of them were dead by the time they turned 50.

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Re: Evolutionary Advantage - 5 months ago

The body is a system of processes, and as a mathematician, you probably have a grounding in systems-thinking. When one process is altered due to a stimulus, or lack of one, the others HAVE TO be affected, however much, one way or another. The human body is replete with zillions of many kinds of bacteria, most of which seem to be able to co-exist. Symbiosis and all that. I learned many years a

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Re: Repurposing an old drug for af- with success - 5 months ago

QuoteThe Anti-Fib So in other words, being able to maintain an erection in men can defeat AFIB. Maybe just wanting one? >< (Sorry, OP, you just HAD to know....)

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Re: Smart heart ecg? - 5 months ago

My Samsung smart watch, all the way back to the all-black Galaxy 4 I'm wearing as I type, takes a single lead that yields a downloadable ECG with the typical gradations and waveform depicted. I sent a file with my ECG to my EP three years ago and he immediately asked his clerk to schedule me for another ablation. No questions asked. The purchase of the watch, now almost five years old, wa

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Re: Anti-arrythmic meds - 5 months ago

You do NOT want to be on amiodarone for long, and some people do very poorly on it at the outset. The reason is iodine toxicity to the lungs, brain, eyes, and to the liver. The heart does okay....though....but......really it is a powerful drug, and when I googled years ago, 'Is amiodarone a drug of last resort?', the first hit was 'Yes!' So, my inexpert opinion on drugs is

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Re: A Few Questions - 6 months ago

Hi. For someone who is rarely in AF, in other words still very much in the paroxysmal stage, the chances that a simple PVI will nip your AF runs about 85-90%. This is why so many EPs will do that as a first stab at your condition...a PVI, and out you go. It may not be the case with your, though, and who would know unless your heart is challenged and the EP does a thorough map of your electrica

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Re: Should I get an angiogram? - 6 months ago

I had an angiogram three years ago to see if I was a reasonable candidate for an ablation, and that it wasn't just ischemia all along that was causing my heart to act up. It's much/most of a day in day-surgery, in the same cath lab for an ablation at whatever hospital you're to. Same procedure, really, except you're invited to stay awake, with mild sedative if you ask. You�

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Re: Had my pvc ablation! - 6 months ago

Due to the various medications and interventions you've had in the past six-eight years, and due to age (I have guessed or assumed that you are 60+...?), and due to the conditions that required intervention. I don't know how ambulatory you are, how much you sit or.....these all present risk. If I have guessed incorrectly, I will happily stand corrected.

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Re: Had my pvc ablation! - 6 months ago

I believe you are also/still are a prime risk for stroke, Susan. So, you and they are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

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Re: To go for PF ablation or not - 6 months ago

That, and your magnesium drink, are why you're still alive all these years later, George.

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Re: Smart watch - 6 months ago

So far, few of the smart watches have a continuous monitoring and alarm system. In fact, I know that my Galaxy 6 watch cannot be manipulated to run a continuous assessment of my rhythm. With WiFi and Bluetooth enabled, and having that light diode going on full time, the battery would be stone cold flat inside of 4-6 hours. If I turn off the former two services, I might get 8 hours out of a sin

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Re: To go for PF ablation or not - 6 months ago

Thanks for posting that article, Jim. I will now read it and digest it. And thanks, again. So, it seems quite clear that rate control is an important contribution to slowing further degradation, but not sufficient for many patients. However, the takeaway for me was that this is reversible......IF..............there is negligible fibrosis in the LV as determined using enhanced imaging with

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Re: Looking for an oblation Dr. - 6 months ago

I see those sites as kvetching opportunities for people who feel they weren't given or told what they wanted. Meanwhile, the physician is still credentialled, working at a prestigious and busy hospital, and has no public proscriptions or censure for the way they treat their patients.

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Re: To go for PF ablation or not - 6 months ago

I'm afraid I'm not so sanguine about continuing in AF. Yes, I am heavily biased against merely taking a reduction in thromboembolic risk and calling it a day because I have historically been quite dramatically symptomatic. I admit that my experience while in AF was distinctly unpleasant, and it must surely colour my view of being in AF and of what I advise others to do about it. With

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Re: Had my pvc ablation! - 6 months ago

Congratulations, Susan. I hope that you can be free of arrhythmia, at least at the onerous burden you had prior to this last ablation.

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Re: How can 4 TEES show my watchman is perfectly sealed and today a new TEE shows it leaking? - 6 months ago

Damn....where's that like button when you want one. Susan knows how to find good info, but I'm standing right behind Carey and nodding. 'Inter-rater variability', or 'inter-operator variability'. A second opinion is a good idea here. If it checks out, then Susan's post seems to fit.

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Re: Looking for an oblation Dr. - 6 months ago

My EP in Victoria, BC, is excellent, but his reviews, the few I could find, maybe 15 in all, were somewhat negative. He received the Canadian Cardiology Association's prize in 2002 as the top candidate. He is brusque, matter of fact, busy, and pretty darned good. Maybe you could look for EP reviews where people complained he didn't send them a Christmas card or hold their hand for an

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Re: vagus nerve stimulator - 6 months ago

I have never heard of them, but I don't see how they can be less costly or more reliable than the various hands-on DIY methods explained across YouTube. Stroking the tragus repeatedly, deep breathing with breath holds, and so on...

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Re: Endurance athletes have a four times higher risk of irregular heartbeat, and this may be why - 6 months ago

I was an endurance athlete pretty much my entire adult life. I used long lunch hours to run between 5-8 miles daily, and I ran 20+ km most Sundays....pretty much without fail, for 27 years. I only developed AF late in life, and the cardiologist concluded that the problem was OSA, not the running I was still doing three/four times each week, or the two or three cycling sessions I did, all with fa

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Re: Need an EP for Non-AF Tachycardias - 6 months ago

Thanks, Jim. I haven't found, or maybe I just choose not to recall, a statistic or claim like your EP's . I do understand that the majority of ablations have a 'best before' date. I'm not exactly dreading my own recurrence; I expect it to happen one day. I just hope it doesn't put me in that head space again where I feel desperate to be rid of it, almost by any me

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Re: Back in AFIB again - 6 months ago

You have knowledge now, experience (unfortunately), and motivation going for you in this. I'm very surprised you were refused a cardioversion. What was their stated reason for sending you away? Maybe it was your low rate that made them think RVR was not involved.

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Re: It's like Afib but with normal P wave - 6 months ago

It could be a preservative. That stuff has a shelf life of several months. Maybe it's something like sodium or potassium metabisulphite, a common stopper of the yeast and preserving agent used in wines and beers.

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Re: Fish Oil consensus? - 6 months ago

What is the comparative incidence of AF between populations eating a lot of fish, especially the ones especially rich in linolenic acid, and populations that do not? If it's markedly higher, I guess it's a problem and seems to follow. If it doesn't, could it mean that the commercially available product is not quite the same and that it leads to inflammation or other conditions?

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Re: Need an EP for Non-AF Tachycardias - 7 months ago

Yes, it's a bummer when we come to understand that an ablation is merely a roadblock for the signals. They don't stop the condition, or repair it. So, the next best thing is to just 'dam' them, or place a 'stockade' of scar tissue around the places where the signals encounter the endothelium to cause those unwanted contractions. That's all an ablation is...surro

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Re: 1 year after ablation and now PACS - 7 months ago

This might be useful to you. I'm sorry I can't be more positive for your sake:

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Re: Endurance athletes have a four times higher risk of irregular heartbeat, and this may be why - 7 months ago

The exertion is only part of the problem. As a person who has run numerous foot races at various distances, including half and full marathons, dehydration and low sugar and electrolyte levels are a constant problem. If the athlete is not careful, he/she could even enter a race somewhat low on both water and electrolytes already, say from a late night pre-race party the night before, or even fro

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Re: Resting Heart Rate post Ablation - 7 months ago

I have seen widely reported, anecdotally only, that many report an elevated HR after ablation. Dr. Scott Lee, on YouTube, an EP who claims to specialize in complex cases of AF, says that your heart raises its rate in response to stressors of several kinds, not least of which is alcohol...which I can support because, as an ablatee, my heart rate does climb to about 74 BPM from my normal 68 at res

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