treeman, I have had two ablations. I was in the ER with more fibrillation within six days after the first attempt, and had to resort to the huge hammer that is Amiodarone in order to tame it. Seven months later, the same EP performed a corrective ablation which, happily, seems to have done the trick.

However.....two months after I stopped the Amiodarone, apparently in NSR again, I suddenly returned to AF. Over the next six weeks, I had three cardioversions. The first lasted 16 hours, the second about four, and the third I was back in AF after a whopping 20 minutes. Nobody said as much to me, but I concluded that my heart had indeed finally remodeled itself to be in persistent AF. Fortunately, that second ablation was soon enough and all seems good.

What I have shared isn't much encouragement, sadly, and I do understand fully what you are experiencing. It was unnerving for me. It led to not a little anxiety, and my quality of life suffered. If I could share another development: two weeks after my second touchup ablation, I went into AF again. I was aghast! What happened? I had done so well over the previous two weeks! I was put on metoprolol again and told to go home.
My heart did convert just as I was being released, so at least I went home with that much. I called the AF clinic's outreach nurse, a queen if there ever was one, who was adamant that my heart had been fixed. She said emphatically, "No, you do not have atrial fibrillation right now. Your heart is cranky and it needs a little encouragement. Also, you absolutely should have been cardioverted because your heart today is not the heart is was prior to the ablation two weeks ago. Your attending physician was wrong to deny you a cardioversion." She went on to say that my heart needs some metoprolol and some healing, and that it will show signs of that before long. She was absolutely correct: within two weeks I was off metoprolol again and I have not looked back.

You say it's frustrating. Yup, and very discouraging if you're being honest....right? Been there, and so have a great many of us. If I have any credibility here, I strongly urge you to get into the books of a highly sought and highly accomplished electrophysiologist, even if you have to travel and stay in a motel two or three nights, and get a catheter ablation. While drugs come and go, and cardioversions come and go, that fact is that this progressive disorder is going to get worse unless you undergo a truly remedial measure...ablation. The lesions and scarring that the procedure produces around the pulmonary veins acts as a stockade, or a fort, around the area where the spurious electrical signals gain access to the endothelial lining of the left atrium. Blocking them means they can't get out and make your atrium beat ectopically. I can't begin to describe to you how gratifying and reassuring it is to find your heart back into its welcome normal rhythm days, weeks, and months after a successful ablation. One fly in the ointment: even the vaunted Dr. Natale at the Heart Rhythm Clinic in Austin will tell his clients that he'll probably have to do a minor touchup in a few months. Sometimes, he's right.