Re: PVI Ablation that went BAD

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Posted by Henry Alken on January 12, 2004 at 11:45:06:

In Reply to: Re: PVI Ablation that went BAD posted by Pete on January 12, 2004 at 00:41:31:

Pete,

I'm sorry your health plan will not permit you to go to CC. I had Blue Cross Personal Choice at the time of my Maze and they pre-approved my going to CC. They paid the entire bill of $55,000. So I was lucky.

During the 6 plus years that I had Afib and was lead around the drug trail by assorted cardiologists, my Afib gradually changed into Atrial Flutter. The docs at U.Pa. thought they could cure me of everything so I had a right-side ablation there. Not a left-side PVA. The end result was that the Aflutter was changed back into Afib again and it was not until I was operated on at CC that the Afib was gone for good. For a very small percentage of mazers, it is found that the surgical scars left by the Maze procedure itself cause circular electrical patterns at the bottom of the right atrium. Eight months after the Maze, Dr Schweikert at CC located and interrupted this pattern during a 6 hour ablation. I have been completely cured since then - no meds and NSR all the time.

Carl's point of checking the doctor's track record cannot be over emphasized. My Maze was done by the incredible Dr McCarthy. He told me had done over 300 procedures when I met him and that he was doing 2 per week, so now he must have done over 500 Maze procedures - all with zero deaths and zero strokes.

A big problem with this Afib stuff is the fact that you go to a Cardiologist when you first have heart symptoms - it is the natural thing to do. But cardiology is not a surgical specialty - they are not allowed to operate upon you. The result is they will not refer 'business' to the surgeons and will only discuss non-surgical solutions to the Afib problem. In reality, in my opinion, the surgical solution is the safest and the most effective but it is rare for a cardiologist to acquaint his patient with that information. None of the 6 cardios I went to ever did.

Ablations scare me. I like my doctor to get in there with both hands and eyes and to see what he is doing. I don't like the idea of twiddling a piece of wire from 3 feet away and trying to decipher a Fluoroscope image.

I wish you every success,

Henry

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