To expand the question a bit: Has anyone here either had an alcohol septal ablation (treatment for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy), or has/had direct experience with somebody who’s had one and can talk about it?
Mine is scheduled for next Tuesday.
(No, Discobot, this topic is not similar to “has anyone used an alcohol stove?”. Though I will grant that’s closer than a lot of Discobot guesses I’ve seen.)
I had a cardiac ablation to treat atrial flutter. Is that similar?
Just looked that up. It looks like it’s similar in that it’s a procedure done on the heart via catheter up from the groin; but different in that your type apparantly uses heat to damage some of the heart tissue and create scar tissue, whereas the alcohol septal ablation uses alcohol to kill some of the heart tissue in the septum, which has become abnormally thick and is interfering with the action of the mitral and aortic valves. This does also produce scar tissue.
I expect some of the experience of going through the procedure is similar, at least.
Interesting. Well, if I can answer any questions, let me know.
I guess, basically, any advice about things in the preparation or the recovery that you think might not have been covered in the basic info they give you beforehand? anything you didn’t bring or do that you wish you had, or that you did bring or do that you wish you hadn’t?
Procedures may be different enough that questions about length of recovery time, etc., might not apply; I don’t know. I am getting info about that, but some of it’s pretty vague; though the vagueness is to at least some extent unavoidable, as there’s things they can’t know before actually doing the procedure.
I had to taper off drinking, and they put me on coumadin (blood thinner), metaloprol (beta blocker) and maybe something else as well. All of which I went off of after the procedure.
The procedure itself was very simple, went in in the morning and home by afternoon. Back to work after a day or two. Had a nasty bruise on the groin area but otherwise no big deal. That was 12 years ago, have had no problem at all since then.
I had it done at a preeminent Boston hospital by a preeminent cardiac doc so there were no issues about the info or prep. I will say, bring something tasty to eat for when you come out of anesthesia. Fortunately for me, my girlfriend was with me and there was a chocolate chip muffin and hot coffee awaiting!
Ah. This may be a little more drastic; I’m looking at two days in the hospital (presuming all goes well), the first several hours after the procedure I think flat on my back. And while the friend who’s driving me will be waiting with her phone and a batch of other people will be waiting for her updates, they’re still antsy enough about covid that nobody gets to come in with me.
I don’t know when they’ll let me eat, but one person I did speak to said they brought him surprisingly good food. Might take your advice and have something with me in case, though.
It’s being done at a hospital with an excellent reputation for cardiac issues and for this procedure in particular; I’m lucky enough to be only a couple of hours away.
Wow
Good luck.
Start a thread so we can follow your journey.
I had a catheter ablation similar to jaycat in September 2019. The procedure took longer than expected so they kept me in overnight to recover from the general anesethetic. Had the procedure on a Thursday morning, came home Friday afternoon and was able to walk (slowly) a mile to the pub on Saturday. Massive bruising that took a while to fade. I’m still getting AF occasionally and still on the meds for it, but at a lower dose than before. I may have to go back for a second try at some point.
There are only a few kinds of cardiomyopathy.
I happen to have a rare (, untreatable, and terminal) form or the rarest kind of cardiomyopathy – restrictive.
But I once had a long chat with the founder of this group:
Not only has she been overwhelmingly responsible for establishing many of the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy programs at many of the nation’s leading tertiary care centers, she’s an HCM (and heart transplant) survivor and a very good person.
Among other things, the website has a forum where lots of bright and caring HCM patients act … well … more or less like the Dopers do here (minus The Pit, of course <grin>).
I wish you phenomenal good luck going forward.
I’ll report back after I’ve had the procedure – possibly in this thread; but will most likely be off the boards for a couple of days at least. I generally do message boards on the desktop for the large screen, as I find it easier to read larger type; and of course I won’t have that setup with me in the hospital.
Yes, that sort of thing’s a possible issue. They really can’t tell before the procedure just how much they’ll have to do or what the recovery process is going to be like – best case is one situation (though even that’s a couple of days in the hospital and restricted activity to some extent for some time afterwards) but while that’s fairly likely there are a variety of things which might happen which could make it more complicated; of which the most likely is that nerves may get damaged causing me to need a permanent pacemaker.
Ouch. I looked that up, that does look worse than what I’ve got. I’ve got the more common asymmetric septal hypertrophic cardiomyopathy; they tell me it’s congenital, but it only started producing enough symptoms for me to get diagnosed about two and a half years ago, though in retrospect I’ve been having noticeable symptoms for quite a lot longer than that, which I’d been putting down to aging.
Thanks for the link – that looks useful.
ETA: do you have to pay for membership in order to see the forums? I can’t find them on the pages I’m seeing.
Ok. I’ll have my fingers crossed and think of you during your procedure…Best of luck and an healthy outcome.
B.
I’m back home; and patting a cat.
Ablation appears to have been successful. They thought I didn’t need a pacemaker at first, but it turns out that I did. I need either early to bed or a whole lot of coffee, and am going to pick the sleep. More within a couple of days, probably.
Wow. Welcome home. It sounds like a lot to have gone through.
Rest well. Fingers crossed that it was an unqualified success !