Ablation help pleaee

Hi Niya54294, I had Ablation 10 days ago and to my regret I still have daily episodes of PAF. I also have chest tightness and a little cough, perhaps brought on by the cold spell we are having. As somebody said, the heart takes a bit of a pounding so you experience various symptoms but they will soon go away. For instance in my case, the incision on my groin still hurts.

I am sure you will get better. Take care

Hi Niya. Hope you're feeling good today.  I've just been reading about your problems and noticed the hyperventilating.  Remember the old paper bag trick?  ( or similar flexible container you can put to your mouth). Breathe in and out only into that when you're hyperventilating, and it collects the CO2 you breathe out.  Re-inhaling that slows everything down again.  Neat trick. You'll know when to stop. Not long.  You'll have slowed down , and eventually not want all the CO2, but be reassured in between you are still getting enough oxygen, so don't worry.

As for stress, try noticing what your body is doing, as though you're a curious bystander, but discard the emotion.  To end up saying to your body "oh, are you doing that again?  Not really necessary thank you, you can stop now". Notice but dismiss it, so you can detach from it.  

I have hormone distruption which is a mystery, but makes me feel agitated and feel dread. For. No reason! All I can say is that at first I searched for emotional reasons in my life to explain it, and if I think of something bad it brings it on, so making a bad connection, like conditioning, but then I realised that the way it made me feel was just chemistry.  It needn't be a chicken and egg situation.  My anxiety or whatever didn't have to be personal, it was just a feeling I could notice or ignore.  If I didn't look for the thing that had prompted the feeling, it lost its power, and stopped being a spiral into panic.

My AF is frightening and painful and initially after an attack you think of the bad things, but have faith that this too will pass, whether we get frazzled or not.  And the agitation will only make it worse or last longer. Distract yourself with non stimulating, gentle pass times, ( I chose to binge watch Ray Mears videos while I recovered!).

Some people try meditating, and I know it's a personal response, but I like to be mind-full not mind empty.  So I pray, because I believe God has us in His hands, and responding to that does remind me I'm struggling unnecessarily! Personally,  I like Psalms 91 and 139 for that reason.  My form of meditation is to just sit quietly in His company for a bit.  I hope that helps x

 

No Niya, not yet, but I've been told I'm on that path, and maybe to a pacemaker. I want to see an Electrophysiologist soonish.  

But I've had operations and procedures and been pulled about by doctors who seem to lack imagination! It is tough, and I'm so sorry you're having a bad time with this. We always need to remind ourselves things take longer than we imagine to settle down.  I wonder sometimes when we were first called 'patient'.  Modern medicine gives us an expectation of quick fixes but it's not always like that.  I'm typing this to remind myself, not you😉

Bags - any will do that's small enough to gather into a pouch and breathe in and out of.  If plastic, tape up any holes!  The point is to rebreathe the carbon dioxide you just breathed out, because raising the levels in your bloodstream tells your body to slow your breathing, and that's useful if you're hyperventilating!  ( there is still some oxygen in that air, and you'll feel when you've had enough)

I hope you find the bag trick works and you can feel calmer.  

God bless you