Hi, and welcome. I was 65 when first diagnosed. I developed AF near the tail end of a 10 km maintenance run. For the first three years it was strictly controlled via metoprolol and my natural health. Then it began to come on more frequently, and that was when my cardiologist referred me to an EP for the first time. It took that latter specialist two cracks at stemming my AF. His first attempt failed and I had to go on amiodarone for a few months to get my heart rate to calm down. Second ablation worked.

Statistically, across all practicing EPs everywhere, the success rate for an index ablation is 75%. There is variance due to several factors, but the very strongest factor is the skill and experience of the EP, especially if that person is good enough to have gone on to complex cases and done good work. Not all EPs will tackle complex cases where they have to include ablating the left atrial appendage, the coronary sinus, or the Vein of Marshall. They'll just try the ol' PVI (pulmonary vein isolation) which, in early cases like yours, is a 90% probability that it's the right place to ablate first.

Again, 25% of all index ablations are failures. Do most EPs and patients try again? Yes. Two, three, four, six, and more ablations, and I know people in those categories. The problem is that each such operation carries risk for the patient, and if the EP doesn't really know what he's ablating (shotgunning it) it can be useless as well....great costs for no benefit, and those risks keep adding up. Bottom line, you really MUST shop around and seek the help of the best EP you can afford to fly to, stay a couple of nights in lodgings, and then fly home.

What does the industry call a 'successful' ablation? One full year free of the treated arrhythmia post ablation. After that, it's called 'recurrent' AF, PACs, SVT, PVCs, etc. The typical ablation in the typical patient lasts, if he/she manages to get to the year mark without incident, about 3-5 years....with tons of variance. I know people who were ablated in the dark ages of electrophysiology and have still only ever had the one ablation twenty years ago. I am about to go three years free of AF, but it took the second stab at it from the same gentleman....so to speak. I went seven months between the index and the second attempt. It was a truly nasty interlude, lemme tell ya, and I couldn't wait for the EP to try again. He knew I had faith in him (Canadian Cardiology Student of the Year in 2002). Later, when I was awake, he came by and said he was ablating my third pulmonary vein when my heart resumed normal sinus. They watched, high-fived, and he said he didn't even bother to cardiovert me before wheeling me out of the cath lab., which he almost always does after an ablation.

So, to sum up, in the right hands (and that should be your chief task set for yourself), you should see yourself free of arrhythmia for years. However, the body ages, and the disordered heart progresses in its disorder. The concomitant changes mean that few ablations can possibly last indefinitely. The changes mean that the heart finds other foci through which to launch new spurious signals, at which your heart is likely, not certainly, only likely, to launch into arrhythmia again at some point. If you have only had one or two ablations, I don't know why you shouldn't be able to withstand a third or even a fourth. It's not a killer disorder....AF won't kill you. It can make you truly miserable, especially with anxiety. If you want it beaten into submission (there is no 'cure, only remission), then spend some time, money, and energy seeking out the services of the best EP you can reasonably afford.