Mike's Posts

What do you mean by "pacing"? If you had open-heart surgery with the Maze procedure, it is not uncommon to need temporary pacemaker support for 1—3 days afterward, and in some cases it can take up to about a week for the heart's rhythm to recover enough. The fact that yours has improved is a good sign. If it still is not enough beyond that, your doctors may discuss whether you need a permanent pacemaker. Not ideal, but lots of people live very normal lives with pacemakers.

I had all of this done through OHS (Open Heart Surgery). To my knowledge, all of this can be done with minimal invasive surgery. Don't quote me on that. If you can get it done this way, great. Maze procedure might not completely fix things but is considered superior to ablation. There is a chance you might still need ablation later on despite having done the maze procedure. I was told, that when you do the maze procedure, later on new electrical signals can form new paths resulting in afib, atrial flutter, etc. However, the same can happen if you get ablation later (because you didn't do the maze procedure) and resulting in a second ablation. It's probably good trying to get it all done in one shot. Also note that each procedure results in scaring of your heart which is not a good thing (necessary to address the issue, though). You might want to discuss if during surgery both a heart surgeon and an electrophysiologist should be involved.

As I was told by trusted folk there is no real incentive to a Mini Sternotomy. A sternotomy is basically a sternotomy so don't infer a penalty here... If anything, when it is a mini, they have to "stetch the s***" of of everything to get access so the full offers the panoramic view and is faster~! You are in good company.