Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Day

I had a regular appointment with my cardiologist today. I see him every six months because I have atrial fibrulation, otherwise known as afib, which is an irregular heart beat. I've had it for a long time and it's pretty controlled by medication.

I have three main triggers for it - caffeine, stress and being tired. I don't drink any caffeine so that removes one. Tired is something I can have some control over. Stress is a bit harder. Lately my job is much more stressful and that has not been good for me. Ironically, one of my biggest stressors is trying to make extra money to pay off my medical bills.

Today, he told me to start thinking about having an ablation at some point in the future. It's a technique to address the afib, but it's something they're still perfecting for my kind of afib. He said he'd recommend I go to the Mayo clinic to have it done. Hopefully that's something that's a long way in the future.

2 comments:

Judith Robl said...

Afib is another thing we have in common. My is totally under control with the medication. I've not had an episode of the turkey beating its way out of my chest for seven years.

There are techniques to control the stress, but they take time to learn.

I can hardly wait for our lunch date next week.

Patsy Terrell said...

I'm looking forward to lunch, too. I wish I could say my afib was totally controlled with medication. I have a naturally low pulse rate so there's a limit to how much medication I can have because it all seems to lower the pulse rate. Hopefully one day the afib will just disappear one day on its own and leave nothing but good health in its place!