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New A-Fib Story: Relentless After 2 Failed Ablations―Leads to a 3rd Using the ECGI Vest
We’ve posted a new personal A-Fib story by Martin Johnson from Champaign, IL. His story also includes a post-script by his doctor, Dr. Phillip Cuculich, Barnes-Jewish/Washington University. Martin did a lot of research in his years with A-Fib. He learned about the Medtronic ECGI vest, an advanced mapping technology and about its inventor, and the benefits of the contact force sensing catheter.
Martin Johnson
Martin’s A-Fib first occurred in 2003 during a game of underwater hockey (an extreme sport requiring swimming under water while pushing a lead puck from one end of the pool to the other).
Martin shares with us:
At first, I thought “well I did just swim 25 yards under water as fast as I could, so maybe this is just normal”. It lasted about 20 seconds. The attacks quickly increased their duration to a couple hours each over the next couple months. I was forced to give up the game I’d been playing since age 37.
For the first couple of years I only got attacks after physical exertion. As time went on, less and less exertion was required to trigger one. After going through 6 different drugs, most of which had no effect, one of which almost killed me and another that modified my attacks, I had no net improvement. “My EP’s prognosis was―’ever more often, ever longer attacks until I would be in permanent A-Fib’”.
After seven years with A-Fib, I was getting approximately 24-hour long attacks about every four days plus occasional attacks triggered by physical exertion.
I had my first RF ablation in July of 2010. Two hours after the ablation, I was in A-Fib again.
My A-Fib attack timing continued without letup— 24-hour-long attacks every 4 days. I agreed to a second ablation 6 months later. …Continue reading Martin’s A-Fib story->
