Afibs cannot be put into NSR

If you have the motivation and resources to do so, consult with Dr. Andrea Natale at the Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute in Austin. He is a world class electrophysiologist whose skills and experience are known around the globe. He practices at Austin, but also at Los Robles and at La Jolla, plus several other hospitals now and then. He fixed up the gentleman who runs afibbers.org who had been ablated five (5) times and was still in arrhythmia. Carey has been free of arrhythmia now for over five years. Imagine! Five years of bliss!

Thanks for your feedback. I will join affibers.org, and check out Dr. Andrea Natale. (My husband may not get afibs resolved by ablation nor cv bc he has flutters.)

Flutter, believe it or not, takes place after ablations for AF surprisingly often. I don't know because I have never researched it, but it must be near 10% of all ablation cases, or a bit less. Happened to a friend of mine, and others on afibbers.org have said it happened to them. But, EPs routinely invite ablatees back to fix flutter, and it's roughly the same process, but it often happens in the right atrium this time. Anyway, flutter does sometimes result from an ablation for AF, strangely, and the better EPs will just go in again and try to block it the same way.

Thanks for your response.
EP said he found 2 afibs and flutters and “fixed” them, (I was later unclear re flutters bc husband did not remain nsr shortly after ablations nor followed by Cv.) Looks likd we need to revisit this with EP — why did husband go out of rhythm so quickly?

The heart has become electrically disordered and, in a weird way, it LIKES it! A heart in arrhythmia likes to stay in that arrhythmia. In the medical world, the saying is, 'Atrial fibrillation begets atrial fibrillation.' Another is, 'Once in flutter, it will want to stay in flutter.' A heart in flutter does not respond well to a cardioversion, for example. That is why a proper 12 lead ECG is required to see if the heart is in flutter or if it is in AF. Happened to me.
As I replied previously, it is surprisingly common for a successful ablation for AF to suddenly turn into flutter, and the reason is that there is more than one focus or reentrant for the extra signals, and that other focus or reentrant was not detected, or even not active, when they wheeled your loved one out of the cath lab...thinking they'd gotten it all. After a few days or weeks, sometimes that very night, the heart activates the dormant site and the heart dutifully reacts to the extra impulse. It just means another arrhythmia has taken over, and it must be dealt with the same way as the AF. In fact, it is common for ablatees for AF to go for two, five, eight weeks into the 'blanking period' of two months only to begin getting a lot of PACs (premature atrial complexes), which are very thumpy and annoying. If they happen, it's usually a bad sign that the heart will soon return to AF. Happened to me. A second ablation, same gentleman EP, had me fixed right up. I have been free of arrhythmia for 28 months now.

'and "fixed them...' Not really. The condition that makes the heart fibrillate cannot be corrected. It's a permanent, and often progressively worse, condition. But there is a 'remedy'. The remedy is to literally 'block' those signals from making the atrium muscles contract. This is achieved by ablating the tissues surrounding the area where the extra signals come from. In about 90% of al initial diagnoses of AF, that area is going to be inside one or more of the four pulmonary vein ostia, or their 'mouths,' where they empty freshly oxygenated blood returning from the lungs to the heart. The left atrium receives oxygenated blood and pumps it down, through the one-way mitral valve, into the left ventricle below the valve. The ventricle then pumps it up the curving and large aorta where other vessels branch off and take the freshened blood all over one's body.
When AF happens, extra signal bleeds out into the pulmonary veins from the normal and original path across the septum, the thick wall between the four chambers. Endothelial tissue lining the left atrium migrates into the mouths , the ostia, of the pulmonary veins and can pick up the extra signal. When that happens, the signal propagates across the rest of the endothelial tissue lining the entire left atrium, and that wave of signal causes a contraction. Except, it's out of sequence! And worse, the atrium just finished contracting a fraction of a second ago from the normal signal. Now it is forced to contract again, and it hasn't filled yet from the pulmonary veins. Even worse, being empty, the powerful ventricle below it tries to inflate it with blood, except that darned mitral valve is not meant to open for that. This puts an enormous strain on the mitral valve and can cause it to prolapse over time, usually several months if the AF persists a long time.

My apologies, the post directly above was meant in reply to abob whose post I quoted preceded that one. My bad.

I have a Pacemaker after a medical school almost killed me by giving me an anti-arrhythmia drug. No problems whatever. But I have persistent AFib and nothing else.

I had a catheter ablation last March and have been doing well since but at my last visit with my cardiologist I was told the AFib will return eventually and I’ll be put on another beta blocker. Well, I’m disappointed with this news - why bother with having the ablation if this is what’s going to happen. Any thoughts about this issue?

@teacher2001 A reasonable question. AF is a progressive disorder. I get arguments, but if you google 'is atrial fibrillation a progressive disorder', you can use your own judgement at the long list of hits on the first page.
It progresses for two reasons, not one: first, your own heart is producing signalling 'rogue' cells that continue to deposit themselves here and there around your heart. Initially they're found in the ostia of the pulmonary veins, and that is the reason why most EPs will initially only do a PVI (pulmonary vein isolation) during their first crack at an ablation for you. Subsequent attempts, if the PVI is insufficient and you continue with AF or flutter (it happens), will involve ablating more and more surface area in the left atrium. This would include the entire posterior wall, the left atrial appendage, the coronary sinus, the septum between the two atria, and even the Vein of Marshall. Eventually, there's simply nothing left to ablate! The second reason is that when you ARE fibrillating, your heart is in the process of 'remodelling' itself with the deposition of collagen and fibrosis in the walls of the atrium, meaning stiffening, and that causes atrial enlargement. The enlargement causes stress and stretching in the annulus surrounding the mitral valve. In turn, that invites mitral prolapse which is, itself, a progenitor of AF. Nice 'n tidy, eh? Double whammy.
Why do many/most ablations eventually fail? Because of the progressive nature of the disorder. And you should realize, and hope that, some ablations literally do last the rest of the natural life of the patient. I know people who have been in NSR after a single (early in its technical application history) ablation dating back 13 or more years! !!! !!!! So, there's hope there. Obviously the earlier you get the ablation, the higher the probability that 'all of it' will be gotten and your heart calms and doesn't produce so many rogue cells in an attempt to keep itself beating. Sounds weird, but that's what I make of it.
However, for most of We the Great Unwashed, we should expect somewhere between 3-6 years typically, and then we experience the dreaded AF coming back one day. I have accepted that it is likely for me. I rue the day, but the odds don't favour my escaping that fate.
Why bother then? There is risk to every intervention, which an ablation surely is. Why not just rely on medication? The answer is that a fibrillating heart is a changing heart with atrial enlargement, prolapse of the mitral valve, and more fibrosis taking place. Eventually, you may end up with heart failure. That would be an early end....probably. Why not control it with drugs? Because the progressive nature of the disorder means that drugs will slowly lose ground and eventually you'll get more AF with its resultant and associated deterioration of the heart. Also, I read anecdotes all the time on the www of people responding poorly, even dangerously, to arrhythmia drugs. Amiodarone is toxic, flecainide invites 1:1 conduction in some patients (to the dismay of their cardiologists), and dofetilide (Tikosyn) is like amiodarone in that it needs to be 'loaded' initially, but unlike amiodarone it needs to be done in a hospital! (Gulp!)
So, the current gold standard of care is to get an ablation. Ablation may not provide a permanent solution, but as long as it lasts it is delaying the further deteriorations cause by atrial enlargement and fibrotic deposition. And who says you can only have one, two, or three ablations? I know people who have had 6 of them. The most highly skilled EPs will know where to ablate additionally as they enter the heart each time. And if you get a total of, say, three ablations in your life until your EP says that's enough, no more, and if each lasts an average of 4 years, you have bought yourself 12 years of NSR and no further deterioration except that of age-related changes to your myocardium. I'd say that those 20-40K hours of bliss are worth three ablations.
Wouldn't you?