Unexpected problems

[KenG]

I've been sailing along pretty well since my surgery, and thought I was having a complete easy recovery. It's been almost four months since the operation. My only complication was that at a weekand a half, I went into a flutter. I had cardioversion and everything was okay after that. Last weekend, just before my weekly tennis game, I noticed that my pulse was up. i played anyway. The pulse did not come down. It was saturday and I had an appointment with my cardiologist scheduled for Monday. Although I'm off coumadin, I decided to take one on Sat and on Sun just in case. When I saw him, it was a flutter and he sent me to have it converted on Wednesday. Unfortunately, my blood pressure stayed low after the procedure so they pumped me with fluids. So now I feel worse than I did before the cardioversion and taking Lasix to get the fluids out. I'll see my doctor on Tuesday and I think he's going to refer me to someone for evaluation for ablation. Does this make any sense? If I had gone back into flutter earlier, I would have understsood it. I don't think my doctor understands why I would have flutter now, this far past the operation. Any thoughts?

 

[kfay]

Four months is not that far out from surgery. Not only can your heart can still be remodeling at this point, but my cardio told me that anytime you operate on the atriums of the heart, you are opening yourself up to rhythm issues. I started having rhythm issues at four months out that, unfortunately, 14 months later still cause me problems. I have had two ablations for my issues, but no one would even consider doing one on me until I was a minimum of six months post op but preferably a full year out. They wanted my heart to really have a chance to heal before they went in and did another invasive procedure. Drugs were the only option for me during that healing period. I hope that your Dr.'s are successful at finding the problem and fixing it for you.

Kim

 

[skeptic49]

Sorry to read about the arrythmia problem, Ken. I hope you can get it under control with meds.

Best wishes,

Jim

 

[Lionheart]

Ken,
I agree with Kim, you are only three months post op and your heart is still recovering. Do you consume lots of caffeine, which could trigger tachycardia events?

John