Watchman Procedure

Had 2 ablations, the last one with a bleed in the groin , back in the hospital took me off eliquis and bleeding stopped.Much better, but my Apple watch and Kardia say Iam in Afib every morning. Put on Holter monitor came up a rare form of tachycardia, not sure what that means. Meanwhile eliquis is causing little red dots on my trunk and-arms and my hair has started to fall out and my head itches like a bear. Tried xarelto after my stroke caused severe dizziness, so looking at prodaxa and the watchman. Have numbness in my toes and terrible cramps in my legs and hands.
My question is does the watchman hurt the heart and cause loss of blood flow and circulation?
Also where do the blood clots go, do they dissolve on their own or do the sit behind the watchman device, and why do you still have to take drugs ,I have a problem with aspirin so what then?

The Watchman precludes the formation of clots because it closes off the 'grotto' in which they are most likely to form when the heart is fibrillating or in flutter. PACs and other arrythmias don't cause strokes nearly as likely due to their nature. The Watchman is placed and held there, and eventually it gets covered in tissue, sealing off the grotto. Think of a shallow cave just a few feet deep, but with its face closed off with a wall of bricks. With the wall of bricks in place, blood cannot enter, fail to circulate, get 'stale', and begin to clot.

The Watchman does not hurt the heart. Arrythmias do eventually if left unmanaged, and clots do. If you get a clot in your Left Anterior Descending artery that feeds the heart, you're...ummm....dead...pretty much. Similarly, the process of creating fibrosis around the pulmonary veins to isolate them electrically from the rest of the atrial endothelium does not 'hurt' the heart. I mean, it's not exactly ideal that they're in there causing burns to create scarring, but the alternative is a runaway atrium that continues to balloon in size, that can compromise the mitral valve between it and the ventricle below it. The heart heals, just like your skin does, but with a scar, just like your skin does. Meanwhile, you're back in sinus, and life goes on apace.

The anti-coagulants do not dissolve clots. They retard their formation. They don't prevent clots...they just make the blood less eager to form them. They buy you more time if what is in the left atrial appendage, for example, pools, circulates poorly, and then begins to clot. Instead of maybe 20 seconds for this to take place, the apixaban or rivaroxaban makes the clotting slower, more like a 40 second to minute-long timeframe.

The greatest single risk from an arrythmia like flutter or fibrillation is stroke. The drugs are meant to retard the mechanism that causes stroke...meaning clots dislodging from the appendage and working their way downstream to the heart, the lungs, or the brain. So, even if you have the odd bout of an arrhythmia, say a few seconds a day, or once each week, you still run the risk of that clot (IF...it forms) departing from its place of origin and traveling to the brain or to the heart. The anti-coagulant is an insurance policy with pretty decent success. It would be unethical for your physician to not mention this possibility, and its best current remedy or preventative measure...which in this case are two small pills each day, noon and night.

Getting the Watchman changed my life. No more meds, no more tests and I can eat my spinach. Go for it.

I’m still in the final stages. My TEE after Watchman implant has shown my Watchman has not moved since surgery and the echocardiogram reflects all is well. I won’t have my discussion with My EP about stopping Xarelto for a couple more weeks. After the recent TEE, my EP reduced my Xarelto to 15mg. I’ve been on 20mg for a very long time as strokes appear in my ancestral history. The final outcome for me hopefully will be plavix and baby aspirin. No more bloody arms. I will post more as I progress.

I’m also a fall risk due to having cerebral palsy since birth, very mobile & independent with a walker just since 2012. I’m now 76 & started Eliquis in February. My cardiologist did a cardio ablation for a-fib last week & wants to schedule a Watchman procedure in a couple of months. I’d love to hear of anyone’s experience with having this done - pros & cons you’ve encountered.