Failed cardioversion

Hi Deirdre,

Was admitted with heart failure back in Dec.2014. Daignosiis was a tachycardia(rapid heartbeat) induced cardiomyopathy(severely enlarged left ventricle) with an ejection fraction of only 25%. I was also in atrial fibrillation; probably for some, which caused my left ventricle to become enlarged. I just thought I had a nasty virus or similar and just kept 'soldiering on', and after a couple of weeks ended up in the cardiac unit.

Anyway, first cardioversion lasted two or three days, was then put on amioderone(an potentially very nasty, but also very effective antiarrithmia) and cardioverted again three wekks later (once amioderone levels had built up sufficiently).

Second cardioversion worked well; after a month of being in sinus rhythm my left ventricle shrunk back down to almost normal size and i had an EF of 54%(and currently it is 63% -so very happy!). The Amioderone 'dug me out of the hole'  that i was in at the time, but it is not a long term option for staying in rhythm (it can have several fatal side efects, and takes a long time to get out of your system!).

so stopped taking it after six months. Once the amioderone wore off (about five months after I stopped taking it) I went back into AF ( so 2nd cardioversion lasted 11 months) and was cardioverted for the third time.

The third time lasted a month, then the fourth last two weeks, and the fifth lasted weeks!

Decided to have the ablation in April this year(and so far, so good), as AF was getting too regular to live with (could live with being cardioverted once or twice a year).

Once i had decided on an ablation, my cardiologist refered me to an electrophisiologist of MY choosing (did a lot of 'homework' to find out who was the inn town as the expertise of the Dr. doing the ablation procedure has a big influence on the success rates (and you want the best possible chance of an AF free future right?).

My electrophysiologist is interntionally recognised in the AF field ( and has some some very enlightening online interviews discussing AF management that i can diect you to if you like?). He claims to have an 85% succes rate at the five year mark PROVIDED (and he repeated this word), provided you address all you risk factors (which for me was severe sleep apnoea, excessive alcohol consumption(not that I thought my alcohol consumtion was excessive-but apparently it was by AF standards!) and and excess weight ( which puts extra strain your heart).

So i now have a CPAP machine for my sleep apnoea, drink no more than 3 standrd drinks per week, and have dropped 17kgs.

I suspect that all this just buys me more time before AF returns, but after googling this topic to death and reading numerours research articles on AF, I firmly believe that my future AF status lies largely in my own hands. Currernt research now suggests that AF is more of a lifestyle 'symptom' rather than disease in it's own right.

In most cases, the AF patient can have a significant inpact, on their AF status.

Apologies for the long response,

Hope that helps?

Simon

Yes, a lot of people have cardioversion and ultimately go back into Afib -- BUT please know that ablation is also not 100% effetive.  They give you a 70-80% success rate -- well I had mine back in March at a well respected hospital -- and it has failed!  I now have a pacemaker and I'm praying one of the meds will work -- otherwise they are telling me I should consider a second abation.  So please know that just because you have ablation, it doesn't necessarily work the first time, sometimes it does -- and then doesn't after a period of time.  The whole thing is a crapshoot!!