Silver
Full time employment: Posting here.
Thank you for starting this thread.
I have had only one episode of AFIB during a hospitalization in June for surgery then sepsis after my gall bladder ruptured. I converted back to normal sinus rhythm within 1.5 hours. I was immediately started on an anticoagulant and am still taking it. I have had some "flutters" recorded on a 14 day event monitor, but no further AFIB.
I have seen two cardiologists, the second was for a second opinion. This cardiologist is also an electrophysiologist who specializes in AFIB and performs a couple hundred ablations a year.
His recommendation for me was to have an embedded loop recorder for 6-9 months to figure out for sure what my heart is doing. So I am having that procedure this coming Tuesday, 12-5-23. It's done under local anesthesia, and is a small cardiac monitor inserted under the skin on my chest.
I may be also headed for an ablation, but it will be good to have the data to be sure that's the right move for me.
This morning I had the loop recorder inserted under the skin on my chest just over my left breast. I chose to just have local anesthesia although they did offer sedation if I felt I needed it. The procedure itself was no big deal and took maybe 5 minutes once the electrophysiologist got started.
The biggest pain was needing to be at the hospital at 5:30am this morning, (It was done in the cardiac cath lab). And of course the physician wasn't there until around 7:30am and started my procedure around 8:15am. Geez....
I was discharged almost immediately afterwards, and the lidocaine has worn off, but there is minimal discomfort so far. I have a small monitor that looks like a cell phone that sits near my bed, and data from the loop recorder is downloaded every night.
I am hopeful I have no more episodes of AFIB and can get off the Xarelto.