Dr. Jim's Posts

I am not sure I understand the question. To my knowledge, Eliquis is just a blood thinner like Xeralto and others. Are you asking if you could get off the drug? If so, what is your medical history? Mechanical valve (probably not because people usually take warfarin), irregular heart beat and afib (you should be on blood thinner), having the appendage blocked/cut off (might still be good to be on blood thinner), having bleeding complications, etc.

I am curious about this as well. During my first surgery they did the maze procedure. It resulted in a tremendous improvement. However, even after the second surgery I still have some AFib. The surgeon said that this should be monitored and that I might possibly need ablation. Supposedly it's a pretty quick procedure, some 1.5 hours and no opening the chest or anything like that. @Greg Lewis, I heard that many people get AFib again after cardioversion. For how long did you not have AFib anymore so far? Are you on additional medication?

I had cardiversion, and that was it. No more afib since Sept. 9 2021. They told me it worked well, because afib only began after surgery. Cardioversion is completely noninvasive, and takes minutes. I think, like anything else, it takes someone good at it for a good result. My cardiologist did the cardioversion.

@Greg Lewis, is that a question for me? If so, for my first surgery a year ago they did the maze procedure. That helped a lot but didn't get rid of my AFib completely. My cardiologist had me on blood thinner (Xeralto). He was thinking of possibly continuing this after the second surgery but hasn't asked me yet to do so. My surgeon kind of questioned why he would do this because I had my appendage removed during the first surgery (the appendage is where you are most likely to build blood clots if you have AFib). But at this stage (3 months after my second surgery) they are just observing it and see if there is any improvement.