Heart Rhythm Conditions – Welcome to the group

@buddy135 You've done very nicely at 91 and with such an early damage to your mitral valve.

AF is surprisingly common as an arrhythmia, and it's more often found in people over the age of about 60 or so. It's not a lethal disorder....it won't kill you....and most cardiologists will only prescribe an anti-coagulant since the immediate and enduring risk is that of stroke. AF can cause clots to form in the left atrial appendage (LAA) and if they emerge and flow downstream, they can get lodged in trickly places and cause permanent damage. That can be in the heart's own vessels, the lungs, or in the brain.....stroke.

Some patients with AF are highly symptomatic. They live essentially miserable lives because of how it makes them feel when the AF is happening. Others live very comfortably and have no objectionable sensations. With monitoring, say every year, to determine hearth function and health, many live for decades just fine. Others progress to more advanced stages of AF and their hearts and their moods suffer. Those people would want to have asked for more aggressive treatment, but it may be too late. So the wisdom is to get treatment going as soon as possible to forestall that progression. For younger patients, or those reasonably expecting to live well another 4-10 years, catheter ablation is the gold standard of care. For those whose prospects of living well are diminished and falling, probably best to treat with medications and try to enjoy life that way, especially if they are largely asymptomatic.

This is a conversation you would have with your cardiologist, or perhaps on referral to an electrophysiologist (EP) who are heart rhythm specialists and 'electricians.'