Posted by Ken Willis on December 04, 2002 at 00:54:36:
In Reply to: Re: New to the board posted by Howard Frisvold on December 02, 2002 at 16:24:16:
Boy, Howard, you got the full-meal deal with your heart surgery (that's a bad way of putting it after you suffering through your no-taste diet). Glad things are starting to improve for you. I wanted to respond to your question about doctors keeping you on meds or taking you off of them.
I had maze surgery at CC in May, and I had a number of afib episodes during my first three months plus some long intervals (one 16 days and another 18 days) without any arrhythmia. During this time my doctor kept me on Coumadin, Rythmol and atenolol. I had my last short bout of afibs exactly 3 months after surgery, but my doctor wanted to keep me on all three drugs another three months "to establish good neural pathways". I was all for that because I'd had a real twitchy heart that could go into afib without much provocation.
At six months (in rock-solid NSR since that last episode at three months) the doctor took me off Coumadin and Rythmol but left me on 25 mg. of atenolol for the rest of my life. Those neural pathways feel secure to me, so maybe staying on the meds was good. They sure didn't bother me, but I like not taking any more meds than I have to. The atenolol is just a little security against the old twitchiness. As long as I take it in the evening, it doesn't slow me down during daytime exercise.
It seems as though most mazers go off all of their meds after a period of weeks or months, and I'm sure that if I minded the atenolol, my doctor would accede to my wishes. But it's an inexpensive, low-side-effect medicine that has good potential benefit, so I have no problem continuing on it.
It's obvious from reading the Board postings that doctors have different approaches and patients have varying responses to and feelings about meds. I just thought I'd let you know about what happened with me and the reasoning behind it.
Good luck with your recovery. It sounds as if you had a lot done and that you're definitely improving. I'll be hoping that you follow the path of most of us mazers to permanent NSR.