Posted by Rob Hamill on July 16, 2001 at 11:08:17:
In Reply to: Disability and Medicare posted by John Behle on July 10, 2001 at 17:36:35:
I figured that one year in AF was riskier than the maze procedure. When you take into account the quality of life issue, it's a almost no brainer, once you get over the feeling like your going into the executioners room while getting mentally prepared for the proceedure.
One glitch that I just had last week was an attack of atrial tachycardia. The heartrate got to 150, so they gave me rhythmol and 2 hours later I was back in NSR. I think the trigger was a couple of drinks, maybe some chocolate also. This opened my eyes to the potentially tenuous state of SR for some of us. I hope this was my last episode, as tomorrow will be 12 weeks(the final healing period). I'll take rhythmol for 3 months, and hope that it does the trick. If it doesn't, I'll look at mapping and ablating. The thinking is that the tachycardia was caused by the scarring af the atrium, and the impulses were sent by a rogue scar somewhere on one of the many scar cuts.
Hopefully down the road this will be looked at as a cautionary pain in the ass roadbump. No more drinking for me as much as I hate to say it.