I will be going in for testing next month
to see if i am a candidate for what my
cardio explained is a "minimally-invasive
ablation" procedure. I'm doing this
because I have extra heartbeats associated
with atrial fibrillation. He told me that
it would involve using a wire to go
through a major artery in my thigh and
essentially "burning" off pathways from my
atria to ventricles ( if I'm recalling
correctly). I've been trying to research
ablation procedures online, but keep
coming up with very different things than
what he explained...things like open-heart
operations, ones involving incisions in
your side, and complete AV node ablations
(which my doc ensured me was not what he
was talking about).
So, if anyone has had this procedure
before, i was hoping you could let me know
your experiences, and if it ended up
helping or not. Thanks!
Catheter ablation is invasive procedure
used to destroy the accessory (pathologic)
pathways that conduct electrical impulses
from the sinus node directly into the
ventricles by skipping the
atrio-ventricular (AV) node. This direct
conducting of the electrical impulses from
atriums into the ventricles can cause
severe arrhythmias (WPW-sundrome, SVT,
atrial fibrilation etc.).
Procedure involves advancing several
flexible catheters into the patient's
blood vessels, usually either in the
femoral vein, internal jugular vein, or
subclavian vein. The catheters are then
advanced towards the heart and
high-frequency electrical impulses are
used to induce the arrhythmia, and then
ablate (destroy) the abnormal tissue that
is causing or conducting it.
