@tresjur
hello Mary and Teresa. as I mentioned some time ago, I had a surgical ablation together with a mitral valve repair. until now I'm doing very well, no A-Fib .anymore as far as I can feel. I'm still on Eliquis at a lower dose, to prevent bleedings like I had on Xarelto. the dose reduction was possible, because of my low weight (50 kg).
a couple of weeks ago I went to the heart center of cologne/germany. ,where I got the newest results of their investigations.in particular I was interested to read about the actual recommendations as to the surgical options for the treatment of A-Fib. They referred to the american society of thoracic surgeons 2017 :
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons 2017 Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Surgical Treatment of Atrial Fibrillation (
http://www.annalsthoracicsurgery.org/article/S0003-4975(16)31615-0/abstract
I understood that no further anticoagulation is necessary wenn an echocardiogram before discontinuing anticoagulation shows adequate LA emptying by the absence of spontaneous LA echocardiography contrast .on the other hand they recommend the implantation of a watchman device (never heard of that name before!! ) if possible!!. I intend to discuss these new findings/recommendations with my cardiologist next month. also I like to have a copy of the operation protocol, maybe they implanted such a device (if not why didn't they do it, ? maybe repair of the mitral valve + ablation + watchman would be too risky for me?
I hope these informations are helpful for you.
yoanne

I have been on Xarelto for about 6 weeks. I have always bruised easily and had a slow blood clotting time when I was younger. I'm beginning to get lots of new bruises. Hoping I can stay on a thinner though because like all of us I'm worried about clots.