@red350 I hope you'll accept that I sympathize fully. I was horrible when in AF, and people said I looked distinctly grey in the weeks before my first of two ablations for AF. I was in the ICU with a runaway HR six days after my index ablation, and also placed on amiodarone for seven weeks. Then, about two months later, visiting my youngest with her little toddler, I was hunched over so he could hold my pinkie while we walked down the sidewalk and I got that familiar swelling feeling and then the thump and bump. Back in AF. I got fast agreement from my EP that he would attempt a redo, and the second one worked.

Getting a follow-on arrhythmia is unfortunately common. Those whose hearts begin to have more PACs will often find themselves in AF inside of a few months. Those whose AF seems to have been nubbed by a successful ablation often find that they're now in flutter (which is much easier to ablate successfully.....thank the Big Guy!). My point is that once the heart decides it's going to be electrically disordered, it runs the show. Everything else we do is palliative (if you know the official definition of that term...it doesn't mean 'terminal).

I, too, was given two large horse pills for low potassium. My dad, now departed, went to hospital three times in his last seven years due to low sodium, or hyponatremia as it is called. Electrolyte imbalance in the aged is common, often because of poor nutrition, but also often due to simply dehydration. When I make a cuppa coffee for me and my missus each early afternoon, I sprinkle some table salt and some potassium salt (same place on your local grocer's shelves) into the drip carafe first. Life gets more......ummm.....'involved'....as we age.

Not to be argumentative, but you're not back at square one. With the aging heart, none of us ever can be. We have an aging heart, it continues to advance in degeneration along with our organs, our skin, and unfortunately our brains. Ablations can stop the accelerated degradation of the heart that AF and other tachyarrhythmias can cause, such as valve prolapse, vessel thickening or enlargement, and ultimately heart failure. But they won't stop the heart from looking for new paths to confound its own internal wiring. AF, for sure, is a progressive disorder. But, it's not a lethal disorder....it won't kill us. It can make us WANT TO die if we are highly symptomatic and have a lot of anxiety or sleepless nights, but virtually every AF patient will eventually die from something else. AF doesn't kill its hosts.

I do, absolutely, now how it makes you feel. A bit defeated, maybe even cheated. Bummed at the very least. 😀 As I alluded to initially, my first ablation failed, almost a disaster. I was almost worse off! I was in that unhappy statistic that 25% of all ablations fail to control the arrhythmia, at least for AF. Why me?!?!? I have never been lucky, or so I told myself at the time. Looking back on everything that has gone right in my life, I'm wwwwaaaaaaaAAAAAY ahead of the game. I should be laughing...literally. And, my second ablation has had me in blissful NSR for 38 months now. What price for that!?

Try to be optimistic. One worked, you got that nasty opportunistic new arrhythmia, so common, but it's also treatable the same way. If you can stand one suggestion, it is to seek out the very best, busiest, and widely reputed EP you can afford and travel to...if you must. You want someone who can deal with 'complex cases', which you are now.