back in atrial fib

has anyone gone back into atrial fib after they had their ICD's put in .. I had mine done March 23rd and I went back today for them to check it and they told me I went back into atrial fib. I thought the pacemaker was supposed to keep me in a normal rythem?

3 Comments

A-Fib & Pacemakers

by SMITTY - 2011-04-12 01:04:32

It is unfortunate that some of us are led to believe that our pacemaker would stop our A-fib.

To show you what I mean, I had a PM checkup last week and it shows a record of the A-fib events. This is what the printout of the checkup shows.

2-21-11, A-fib for 4 hrs, 15 min, with max atria beats >400.

2-26-11, A-fib for 23 hrs, 46 min, with max atria beats >400.

3-09-11, A-fib for 17 hrs, 03 min, with max atria beats 380.

The checkup was on 4-8-11 and I'm thinkful I had gone a month with out A-fib.

Below is part of a printout I got from the Internet on this subject. It gives more details. The third paragraph is especially important to me as it tell how important a pacemaker can be for some of us coming out of an A-fib episode.

"There was a lot of hope a number of years ago that pacemakers would prove to be an effective treatment for atrial fibrillation. But in fact they're very ineffective, and they do not treat atrial fibrillation.

There's only one situation where pacemakers play an important role in patients with atrial fibrillation, and that is in patients who have both atrial fibrillation and they have slow heart rhythms. That's a condition that's referred to as tachy-brady syndrome.

So there are some patients that will go into atrial fibrillation for a period of time. The atrial fibrillation will stop and then their underlying heart rate is extremely slow. And in those patients, it makes sense to put in a pacemaker because for two reasons. One, that will normalize the heart rhythm. And two, in the setting of this A fib and a slow heart rhythm, putting in a pacemaker may reduce the amount of atrial fibrillation you're having. But more importantly, the presence of a pacemaker will allow your doctor to put you on anti-arrhythmic medications safely.
If you have a tendency for a very slow heart rhythm, if you were placed on and anti-arrhythmic medication, your heart rate may get so slow you could get dizzy or pass out. So pacemakers are really used to allow your doctor to put you on an anti-arrhytmic medication.

But I think it's important to realize that pacemakers are not an effective treatment for atrial fibrillation, but many patients with atrial fibrillation have a pacemaker to allow your doctor to put you on medications."

Now, I by no means this is the final word on pacemakers and A-fib. I'm sure some of the other members will speak to other means of intervention.

Good luck,

Smitty


back in A- fib

by yamahacreeker - 2011-04-12 03:04:44

thanks for kinda clearing that all up. I am going back in on the 29th of april.... Doc is going to knock me out and activate my defibulator on my ICD to see if he can get me back to a normal rythem ... I will tell you one thing I sure felt better when I was in a normal rythem.... I could tell I went back in A-fib....... No ambition to do things I normaly do.

Afib...

by PPM - 2011-04-21 09:04:46

A pacemaker and/or ICD cannot prevent you from having episodes of AFib. A pacemaker is designed to stope your heart beating too slowly (bradycardia), and an ICD is designed to treat a dangerous, fast ventricular arrhythmia like VT or VF (tachycardias).

AFib can be treated by some ICD's that have atrial arrhythmia therapies, but most commonly these are not preferred as they require a person having a conscious shock for a benign arrhythmia. Even so, success is often limited.

AF is managed by medications, and can be treated with a RadioFrequency Ablation (RFA) procedure, however the success rates for ablation are not fabulous. Treatment of AF is more often than not about management of symptoms (medications and pacing) rather than fixing it altogether.

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