Martin's Posts

I had an ablation in August 2018 when I had an atrial flutter going on for about a week that was causing major shortness of breath with any exertion. As far as procedures go it was an amazing thing in that I was able to stay awake and watch things progress on the monitors the whole time. The first part was one of those TEE procedures where they put the echo thing down your throat to get a better look at things. That was the hard part. Then they did 27 individual ablation sessions (not sure what they call them, but each one is a session of running an electrical current to make little marks in the heart wall). Mine ranged from two seconds to 221 seconds long. I was getting really nervous that nothing was changing as they racked up more and more "sessions". Finally on the last one my heart rhythm changed back to normal and they were done. I think I stayed the night in the hospital that night and then home the next day. I was on eliquis for a month after in case it came back. Other than the little incision everything was back to normal lifestyle wise the day after surgery. It's been all good since then although the atrial flutter was a clue that it was getting time to get my valves fixed and we did that a couple months later.