Hi! I’m 78 and have been told I have an 85% chance of the ablation being effective so after many years of palpitations and not being able to travel, etc. I feel it’s worth getting it done. And yes, I’m nervous but feel everything will work out - a lot of people say it’s an easy procedure. Deep breath, be brave and just do it. I’ll let you know how it went after March 4th. xo

The risks of damage or death, across the entire practicing EP field, is about 1.4% for an ablation. This is very low. People buy lottery tickets where they think they have a chance of winning when it's 0.00000005%. Yes, the loss of a coupla bucks is pretty small by comparison, but they spring for the bucks when their chances of winning are 10M times less!! And only one or two people will run down the street waving their huge check out of the 10M ticket purchasers.

Something else to consider; where is your headroom now that you're on the max doses? What's left for you...amiodarone? A pacemaker? Wouldn't you rather submit to an ablation, with that hefty 80% probability of success, than to have your AV node nuked and then leads wired to your heart?

I understand your fear. I had some misgivings about an ablation. But, when I weighed the relative risks of continuing to lose ground with drugs that lose ground, and to figure that mitral valve prolapse or atrial enlargement might lead to heart failure....AND then to add how terrible my AF made me feel, just with the anxiety? I practically begged to be placed in a line-up for an ablation. My first ablation failed. Bad luck. But, because of the low risk, I was otherwise fine. Just PO'd. Seven months later, another ablation, and in 13 days I will have two years free of AF or anything except the very odd triplet of PACs....which we all have anyway, healthy heart or no.