Living with Atrial Fibrillation: What are Your Experiences?

Great advice by nksneuro! The single most effective remedy (not a cure!) for atrial fibrillation (AF is the abbreviation in the N. American medical community) has been catheter ablation, and this was determined scientifically just in the past few months. In fact, the new saying is that catheter ablation is now the 'gold standard' of care. The single most important act the patient, his or herself, can do is to take great care in choosing the best EP (electrophysiologist). The best EP will be among the busiest locally, if not THE busiest, and will be middle-aged or approaching middle age and be doing between 6-10 ablations every week. Also, he/she has been doing this for at least ten years, often longer. They will also be secure enough to admit to their rate of failure for index (first) ablations. In my EP's case, he admitted to a success rate of about 75%, which means he was admitting that he has a statistical failure rate of about 25% for index ablations. I appreciated his disclosure, and trusted him immediately. I was in the unlucky bunch, unfortunately, but I gave him a second chance (LOL!) and he managed to successfully close off the affected area with scar tissue. It was, as he suspected, a small gap he missed in the first set of lesions he had caused around my pulmonary veins.
Choose the best EP you can drive/fly/cycle/walk/boat to and can afford. Their experience and skill is your best bet of walking out of the hospital later that day feeling like you have your life back.

This is for “yeb”
I’ve had AFib since 2016 and am now 79 - female. I had ongoing visits with my cardiologist with heart tests and was on a beta blocker Sotolol and blood thinner Xarelto.
I had extreme palpitations twice a month mainly due to stress. At one point I asked to be put on Sertraline to control the stress and it worked but over time the side effects were awful so I went off it. Finally after waiting two years due to our healthcare system I was booked in for a RF ablation March 4th as an outpatient. The surgeon is American and quite talented. He said at my age I have an 85% success rate. There’s a three month “blanking period” after surgery when the heart is healing and I did get some palpitations but nothing debilitating. One month after surgery I’m off the beta blocker but still on the blood thinner seeing how it goes and will get tested with a holter in a couple months. My cardiologist says I no longer have AFib. Keeping my fingers crossed! So bottom line is if you can get an ablation I would recommend it. Take care. xo