Re: What's the diff between afib and a-flutter?

[Guest guest]

> Listers:

>

> A friend of mine wound up in the ER at ton-Northwestern

hospital with

> a heart

> beat in the mid 200s. In the ER she was told she might need to have

an

> ablation.

> I thought that was a fairly quick diagnosis from an ER doc.

Hi, Lew,

If she can wait to make a decision until she has more info/tests from

a cardiologist she trusts, I, as an ignorant layperson, would suggest

that. ERs tend to treat everything heart related as an emergency,

witness the stuff done to people here who used to go to the ER with

afib attacks, vs. waiting them out at home (with their docs' okays,

of course)

Also, that ablation remark may have just been something the ER person

said off the cuff.

If I had gone with the initial recommendations I got, I'd be on a

serious medication instead of a beta blocker almost three years later.

[Guest guest]

Lew, A couple of sites that I had copied from that describe the AF

and Aflutter.

I'd recommend a good workup with a cardiologist/EP and trying some

meds before ablation. I do know that I was told aflutter ablation has

better success rate than afib ablation.

Good luck to your friend.

Cheryl

http://www.arrhythmia.org/general/whatis/fibflutter.html

http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/heart/rate01.htm

>(snip)

In the ER she was told she might need to have an

> ablation.

>

> Lew Koch

[Guest guest]

> Listers:

>

> A friend of mine wound up in the ER at ton-Northwestern

hospital with

> a heart

> beat in the mid 200s. In the ER she was told she might need to have

an

> ablation.

> I thought that was a fairly quick diagnosis from an ER doc. This

friend knows I

> just had one and is going to call. I thought I would ask a little

info from the

> good people here, before I responded. (I will encourage her, of

course, to join

> this list.)

>

> Thanks.

Lew: I think your friend is being given some hasty and reckless

advise. I know you had a successful ablation Lew, but do you

remember me describing mine? So, one never knows what can happen,

does one? She may never have afib again. Because she had it once

proves nothing. She has a lot of avenues to persue, medically

speaking, before resorting to ablation, that is if her afib does come

back. I personally think it is way too soon for her to start

thinking about it. It's not hard at all for me to recall those very

serious risks.

Best of Luck to your friend,

Pam Walter

>

> Lew Koch