More Heart Fun

 More Heart Fun

Regular readers might remember some posts about this early last year. The saga continues as it seems they fixed Zio's issues with A-Flutter but once off the rate/rhythm control medicine he had A-Fib, complete with the symptoms illustrated above.

Now what? After the regular cardio doc saw the ECG read-out he was on the phone to the electrophysiologist who'd done the ablation. WTF? was easily translated from Italian! A visit to the EP was quickly arranged and ol' Zio was back in the hospital last week for a try at getting rid of the short-circuits causing A-Fib. Interestingly, after the A-Fib showed up, Zio went alcohol-free, just to see if that would have any effect. Cause/effect are hard to prove but the old-fart had no symptoms once real booze was out of his diet.

Zero alcohol beers and wines might be a good subject for a future post, but with these results ol' Zio started wondering if he should just call it good? But he was still on the anti-coagulant medicine and the EP said while they were in there doing the ablation they'd install a blocking device that should eliminate the need for anything more than a baby aspirin in the future. Too good to pass up, right?

One week later he's hoping that's right. Post-op rate/rhythm medicine is still being dialed-in but it looks OK for the old-fart to head north to watch some of the Olympic Games in a few weeks. How soon he can get back on the sporty bikes remains to be seen but he's hoping a visit with EP tomorrow will get an OK.

If YOU have any symptoms like these, get checked out! A-Fib itself won't kill you but a blood clot (something the blocking device reduces the chances of) caused by A-Fib might, so don't mess around. Too much fun on bicycles enlarges the heart and makes it prone to short-circuits that cause A-Fib. For more information read "The Haywire Heart" 

Be careful!