Scared about Ablation for AFib.

Thanks very much for that advice. It was the ER doctor that prescribed Xarelto, which my body didn't like. I do feel trapped. I'm now on Eliquis and I feel almost the same as when I was on Xarelto, but not as bad. I'm very concerned about being on these blood thinners. I feel light-headed and sometimes dizzy and am not myself. A friend had some heart flutters and her doc told her to get magnesium supplements, which worked. She can still drink coffee and wine too. I feel like my world has been turned upside down but she is carrying on with her life life normal. My regular GP says she wants me to get this afib resolved. She knows I hate these drugs.
But, I have another problem that I didn't know about before the ER visit. I have hyperinflated lungs, which is basically COPD. I'm wondering now if my heart was beating so hard because it wasn't getting enough oxygen. I have an appointment with my doc next Wednesday and will ask her for a referral to a pulmonary specialist. One of the symptoms of COPD is heart palpitations. I want to get this addressed. COPD is incurable and progressive, but I need to deal with it. I have never been a cigarette smoker, but was raised in 2nd hand smoke and got serious smoke inhalation four years ago.
It's like a detective mission trying to figure all this out. I hope your ablation does the trick for you. This whole thing sucks. BTW, we only have a couple electrophysiologists here and one of them has a bad rep. so I may have no choice but to see a regular cardiologist. I've heard the one I'm seeing is good though.
Best of luck again with your ablation. Let me know how it goes please.

Good morning, catmom,
Sorry to hear that you are feeling light-headed and dizzy and generally unwell. I checked the side effects of Eliquis and feeling light headed and dizzy are not among them so it must be your condition making you feel like that. Or other meds? Are you on any other medications for BP, diabetes or statins?
Maybe it is not specifically a heart issue after all. It could be all to do with your COPD...and after all, you had that incident 4 years ago where you inhaled carbon monoxide. There are treatments so don't despair. I have a friend (our age) who has had COPD for years. It is well managed and she goes out and about and enjoys life without any apparent limitations besides taking elevators instead of stairs.
I hope you are like me and research everything including meds you may be on and keep notes and ask for copies of all test results so that you are well informed and prepared to discuss your condition with the doctors.
And good that you check reviews on doctors. Is it on Rate your Doctor? Just like with restaurants and travel, one's health is far more important so checking out doctors is a good idea.
When you were at the hospital or the doctor's office, what was the result of the amount of oxygen in your blood? You know, they put a little clip on your finger to measure it. When I was at my last check up, the doctor said it should be 95% O2 saturation or higher. Mine was 98%. If yours is low, that could be why you feel light headed and dizzy.
Are you on other meds like to lower BP (which can make you feel weak, light headed and dizzy) or statins which it seems Big Pharma has every doctor convinced we should be on. My sister in law has borderline diabetes and was put on medication which is ridiculous. It made her so light headed because her blood sugar was way too low. How is your blood sugar? Do you have a friend with diabetes who can puncture your finger to see what your blood sugar is?
Yes, you have to be a detective! If you are on top of everything and are well informed about your condition, test results and side effects of medication etc...you will feel much more in control. The worst thing is feeling helpless and at the mercy of the health care system.
Remember, if you don't feel well, go to the hospital. If you say that it has something to do with the heart, they push you right through. That is the only way to be fast tracked to see a pulmonary specialist and get treatment for your COPD, if that is what is needed. Don't be a saint!

Hi Rubywitch, Good news that the ablation is behind you. You were so worried. You don't say how you feel besides being awake for 40 hours! Did it go smoothly? I presume it corrected the problem and that you are now on the mend. All the best! Robin

Robin, my oxygen level has been consistently 97% to 100%. And, I do research the docs before I go ahead. I'm beginning to lose faith in my GP though. I told her over a year ago about my being short of breath and coughing, and she said it was due to acid reflux and put me on pantoprozole, which I didn't like and only took when I had to. I did have acid reflux (I drank coffee and wine then), but I feel she missed other symptoms. Now I'm coughing up stuff and got the xray in the ER that says my lungs are hyperinflated, which essentially means I have COPD. I'm calling around today to start looking for a pulmonary specialist.
It seems that when you have one health problem, you have more and some are connected. My body is going through a lot right now. Within a month I've been put on Xarelto (went off it), then Eliquis, and now just started alendronate sodium for osteoporosis. Hoping for no side effects.
I have found that my body tolerates Eliquis better if I drink lots of water. I seem to be very thirsty these days. I actually had a half-way good day yesterday and got a few things done, but then woke up at 12:30 am with a pounding heart. Got up and book my BP, which was 137/70 and pulse 73, but my heart was pounding very hard again and it was hard to sleep. I got maybe four hours sleep last night. My heart doesn't want me to sleep apparently. I'm supposed to pick up yet another drug to regulate my heartbeat. Just trying to keep it together until I see a cardiologist and start to get some answers.
All I can think about are my kids and grandkids. I have not yet seen the baby that was born last July. They live in another state. I want to see them and be able to drive and walk and enjoy the visit. I can't go visit them now because of my heart. If just doing yardwork and getting tired makes it beat hard and scare me, imagine playing with small children? I don't want to wind up in the ER there too.
Thanks for listening. I am so appreciative of all the feedback I'm getting on this. I am so scared. Being scared doesn't help with my heart, I know, but I can't help it.
Hope you have a good day.

Also, I am pre-diabetic. I have been careful though and it's stayed the same for years. I checked my blood sugar yesterday when I felt dizzy and it was actually kind of high for me at 123. I was shocked. I've never had a reading that high.

@rubywitch67 First and foremost, you need to contact your doctor's office and you need to speak to him or her. You have every right in the world to have your questions answered by the doctor. Secondly, I wish you could find some excitement - not fear - that, due to the enormous advances in electrophysiology and ablation over the past decade, atrial fibrillation is curable in more cases than ever before. How wonderful! Also, the serious side effects of an ablations are extremely, extremely low. I had an ablation for another type of arrhythmia about 12 years ago. I was home a couple of hours after it, cooking dinner for my little boy. I had some skipped beats now and then but all calmed down quickly. There is no reason to think you will be worse instead of better. Try to be positive! They will keep you on the anticoagulant until you have been a-fib free for x amount of time (I don't know , of course, their specific protocol). Good luck! Try to frame the experience as an incredible opportunity to soon be, hopefully, atrial fibrillation free!! Of course, it doesn't work for every person but the odds are good!!

Catmom., I may be mistaken, but I don't think a cardiologist has given you an official diagnosis of Atrial Fibrillation. Don't be too eager to join the club! The fact that your GP got you an appointment with a cardiologist in 3 weeks indicates that she didn't find your condition too serious. If you had irregular beats and thumps every 10 - 20 seconds (or every 2 beats in my case years ago), and you were having trouble getting air, and you were feeling faint due to the irregular heart beats, your GP would have sent you directly to the ER where a doctor would have put you on beta blockers STAT! My advice is to take a deep breath...get out in the spring air, enjoy your grandchild, get your mind off occasional missed beats, eat well, get exercise so that you go to bed tired and so that you sleep well. At our age you expect to have something wrong. The body is deteriorating! Not fun! But please don't rush to take drugs.

A doctor I went to see who was obviously a puppet for Big Pharma as so many are, wanted me on statins because for the first time ever, my cholesterol level was .2 above the normal range. 'Normal' cholesterol levels used to be a lot higher than today's 'normal'. Big Pharma brought it down so that more people were put on statins. Then Big Pharma brought it down AGAIN to a new normal so that something like 90% of people over 55 are now on statins. Can we all be so sick?... There are well documented side effects of taking statins such as memory loss. And now they discover that cholesterol levels are not a good indicator of cardiac health. It's C-reactive protein and forget the cholesterol levels. I watched a documentary on Cholesterol, 'The Nature of Things' on YouTube and the bottom line was that only a man in his forties who had already had a cardiac arrest should be on statins.
I wouldn't doubt that you, Catmom and Rubywitch are both on statins. Nearly every American and probably Canadian over 55 is.
Check this out:
Google: 'Too Many Meds? America's Love Affair with Prescription Drugs' A quote from the article: "The amount of harm stemming from inappropriate prescription medication is staggering. Almost 1.3 million people went to U.S. emergency rooms due to adverse drug effects in 2014."... Patient beware!

Hi, sorry to see you joined the afib club. Mine started out in early November as an irregular beat, I went to the hospital, told I was in afib, was admitted, changed my medicine, dropping the Beta Block amount I was taking by a ludicrous amount, causing an unbelievablely fast heart rate. Finally getting it under control rate wise, I was discharged and might be undergoing Electro-Cardioversion and change, in the hospital, of my medication from Metoprolol to Sotalol.

My early symptoms were just an irregular heart beat, then became a fluttering I could feel across my heart, then became fluttering I can only feel on the left side of the heart. Much of the time I feel no fluttering, and am hopeful I converted back to sinus rhythm, but alas, my highly irregular pulse reveals otherwise.

Looking just now, it said the effects of afib are generally progressive. At this point, I'm not short of breath, dizzy, etc., though my rate goes too high, reasonably so, during exertion. It also said the sooner some form of Cardioversion is attempted, closer to the it's first onset, the more likely it will be successfully converted for an extended time.

Hope this is of some help.

Can anyone explain if long term atrial flutter damages the heart muscle. My heart stays in flutter 70 percent of the time and has been in continuous flutter since 6 Dec

Hello, I am 73 years old and my EP recommended an ablation due to a-fib. I'm a bit scared, but your comments are reassuring. Thank you.