As I was being discharged from the E.R. for my first “official” afib episode (and my first electrical cardioversion), the doctor gave me a sheet for the Cardiovascular Consultants in Robbinsdale. She explained that while atrial fibrillation itself wasn’t anything serious, I should make an appointment with one of their cardiologists just to make sure everything was o.k. with my heart.
Side note: The Cardiovascular Consultants center appears to no longer exist – at least by that name. The link above to North Memorial is all I could find searching for it.
While I really wasn’t worried, I thought it would probably be a good idea to make an appointment with a cardiologist so I did the following day. Because I didn’t know much about atrial fibrillation, after all I was just diagnosed with it less than 24 hours prior, I figured a cardiologist was a cardiologist so I didn’t care who I made the appointment with.
I would later realize that not all cardiologists were the same. Some were very good and some were o.k. – and some were plain awful. The cardiologist I got stuck with on this appointment was below average – borderline awful.
The person I talked to at the Cardiovascular Consultants recommended I have an echo completed prior to meeting with a cardiologist so I scheduled that first. I had that done on June 26, 2006. The results came back totally normal. My heart was perfectly fine.
On July 13, 2006, I finally had an appointment with Dr. Kimber. He was an older doctor – probably in his late 60’s/early 70’s. It turned out he was one of the founders of the center and had been a cardiologist forever. His demeanor showed it. He looked bored and was almost half a sleep during our appointment. I wasn’t impressed with him at all. About three months after my appointment, I got a letter from him that he was retiring. That explained why he wasn’t exactly interested during our appointment. I’m sure when I met him he was mentally on his way out already.
He explained atrial fibrillation to me and discussed the potential dangers such as blood clots, strokes, etc. He said what I had was lone atrial fibrillation, which meant I didn’t have any heart defects or problems as the cause of my atrial fibrillation. Given my excellent health and age (I was only 33), he didn’t think any further action was needed.
He said I could take a daily aspirin if I was concerned, but he didn’t even think that was necessary. He said that could change if I continue to have episodes but as long as I was symptom free, no further course of action was required.
I was relieved to hear him say that but I wanted to know more about this afib stuff. I asked him what would happen if I started getting more episodes – could it be cured? He said something I will never forget because it totally set my mind at ease but I would later find out it was total B.S.
He said, and I’m almost quoting his exact words, “If you start getting more episodes, it’s really not a big deal. We have medications now that can treat it and if those don’t work we have surgical procedures we can do that will stop them.” Of course he was talking about the various anti-arrhythmic drugs and ablations.
Now anyone with atrial fibrillation reading this knows that simply isn’t true. Yes, for some people drugs help and ablations are successful sometimes, but even if these things work they’re usually not long-term fixes. In fact, there is no permanent treatment or cure for atrial fibrillation. Dr. Kimber shouldn’t have been so cavalier about afib and he certainly shouldn’t have led me to believe there was in fact a cure!
Being the hypochondriac that I am, I wanted assurance from him that I wasn’t experiencing “silent atrial fibrillation” as he briefly mentioned this. He said some people have silent afib so they don’t even know when their heart is beating irregularly. This scared me because what if I had this too? Dr. Kimber assured me that was very unlikely since none of my EKGs since the episode that put me in the emergency room indicated I was in afib.
I wasn’t satisfied with that response, even though it would turn out to be totally correct. I asked if there was a way to check to make sure I didn’t have silent afib. He said he could put me on a 24-hour Holter monitor if I wanted. It didn’t sound like fun but of course I wanted one. I needed to be absolutely sure I didn’t have silent afib! Before I left with the monitor hooked up, he had his nurse take a blood sample from me to do a thyroid test.
For the next 24 hours I wore a discreet monitor on my belt that had a bunch of wires hooked to these little electrodes sticking all over my chest. I was lucky because they had just received newer Holter monitors so they were small – about the size of a smartphone. I guess the older models were much larger and weren’t so easy to hide. Here is a picture I found on Wiki that shows you what this looks like:
I turned the Holter monitor in the following day (July 14, 2006) and waited – and waited – and waited. I didn’t get a call from Dr. Kimber until 11 days later – July 25, 2006. I didn’t understand why it took so long to get the results. And I still don’t understand it. In this day in age, you would think they could have results within 24 hours of turning the damn monitor in! Personally, I think it’s unacceptable but whatever.
Dr. Kimber told me the results of the thyroid test and the monitoring were normal. I had a few skipped beats but nothing to be concerned about. He said one came from the left ventricle and 15 from the atria. Naively, I assumed your heart (if it was healthy and normal) would beat perfectly 24/7. Dr. Kimber assured me that wasn’t the case. He said everyone experiences skipped beats here and there and that what he saw during my monitoring period was perfectly normal (and healthy).
His recommendation was status quo. In my case, that meant doing absolutely nothing, which is exactly what I did. I decided to put it all behind me. I didn’t even do any research on atrial fibrillation. I just wanted to move forward and not worry about it – although it hung like a dark cloud over my head and still does to this day.
I would spend the next two years being totally free of afib!
Thanks for your article. I went through the same situation but it has been only a month after my first afib and everything seems to be o.k., although I feel strange movements I think I am paying too much attention to my heart. Hope in God I never get another one!