Atrial flutter - Running out of options

Posted by pal @palni, Oct 10 9:03am

I am having Atrial flutter for the past 7 months. Having LA enlargement as well.

Taking Amiodrone and Toprol and Warfrin (Initially on Eliquis).

Drs have tried cardioversion 3 times. They found a LA clot and the procedure got aborted all 3 times. While the LA clot shrinked each time in size, it is not completely gone.

They could not do ablation either because of the clot. They changed me from Eliquis to Warfin and its been 4 months I am on Warfrin.

And the clot is visible only on TEE because it is on the edge of the LA APpendages. Normal echo, MRI or CT is not able to detect the clot.

With the persistent Clot in my case even after 4 months of Warfrin, Dr's running out ideas to fix my Flutter issue. I am also not sure what to do.

Has any one went thru similar experience?

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@lindy9

The info is from my own experience. I have posted my story many times. After 7 years of serious episodes when young, I read in a new column someone writing in with symptoms the same as mine and the DOCTOR replied that some people are extremely sensitive to caffeine and that it CAUSES not just worsens the episodes I was having.

I ended up decreasing my coffee to 1/2 cup and discovered it affected me as much as 4 cups. I ended up quitting and rarely had even a minor episode. Also, I had begun being a secretary at this time, and typed engineering specifications back when there was not even electric typewriters. If you made an error, had to white out or start the page over. I made errors when drinking even a tiny bit of coffee, b ut typed lickety split without it.

Now at age 76, I had found haagen daz COFFEE ice cream and was eating it, and within a short time, started to have heart rhythm issues. I do not live in US, so hadn't seen this ice cream in years.

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I do not doubt that your sensitively to caffeine contributes and or even causes episodes. What I am saying is there are no studies I can find in the National Institute of Health website of peer reviewed articles that points directly to caffeine as a problem in the general population. In fact the articles I am finding says that generally speaking caffeine in moderate doses does not directly affect arrhythmias in the general populations. These are articles using large populations of people. So someone who is sensitive might get lost in the statistics.

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@harveywj

I do not doubt that your sensitively to caffeine contributes and or even causes episodes. What I am saying is there are no studies I can find in the National Institute of Health website of peer reviewed articles that points directly to caffeine as a problem in the general population. In fact the articles I am finding says that generally speaking caffeine in moderate doses does not directly affect arrhythmias in the general populations. These are articles using large populations of people. So someone who is sensitive might get lost in the statistics.

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I personally do not care about studies. Someone on this blog related that their cardiologist told them to quit all caffeine. The article that caused me to quit, was written by a doctor 50 years ago who said it was CAUSED by caffeine in people sensitive.

Big pharma censors much that decreases their money making. Remember many years ago when they defended sugar saying it caused no harm and so called health nuts were mocked. Studies just like the media are influenced by their own agenda. People selling whatever food can make studies themselves to promote or protect their sales.

No doctor has ever given me advice to prevent or correct any health problem I had. Only doled out meds that did nothing or gave me worse problems. I have gotten rid of many ailments through nutrition alone. And I write no books and have nothing to sell. Only ran into this blog and feel compelled to help people in a natural way if possible.

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Have you heard of the Wolf Mini Maze. I wonder if this procedure done on the outside of the heart would help you. Dr Wolf puts an Articlip on the left atrial appendage. Might be worth a call to Dr Randall Wolf. Also see facebook page Wolf minimaze live AFIB free.

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