Hubby in Hospital

[gja1000]

Originally Posted by Marilyn

Gayle, they can't get his rate to stay below 120 to 130, so they are going to shock him on Monday. Do you know if bringing him out of a-fib will affect the accuracy of the mapping?

Marilyn,
There are a couple of ways of treating this - one way is to map the bad cells and then ablate them - but in persistent a-fib (like your husband has), they may ablate in areas that are known to cause a-fib to try to stop it. Almost all persistent atrial fibrillation signals come from the four pulmonary veins (which are in the heart) so they just ablate these area. In this case, you don't need to map first.

I don't know which they will use with your husband, but I would guess they will ablate in the areas known to cause a-fib since his a fib is persistent. The procedure may take several hours - so don't be concerned if it does.

Yes, I hate it when they deliberately put my husband's heart into a fatal arrythmia to see if his defibrillator will fire - but I've finally resolved myself to be happy that they check it periodically to be sure it is working properly - but it still makes me very nervous.