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Catheter Ablation - What to Expect During
A small incision is made in the numbed skin; again, this is usually in the groin or neck area. A needle is used to puncture the blood vessel (typically a vein, but sometimes an artery) into which an ablation or diagnostic catheter, or both, will be inserted.

One or more diagnostic catheters are inserted into your blood vessel and gently moved toward the heart. Your physician will follow catheter progress on a special monitor connected to the fluoroscope camera.

Diagnostic catheters can be used to sense electrical activity in various areas of the heart and measure how fast these impulses travel. These catheters can also be used to deliver tiny electrical impulses to stimulate the heart to beat or contract. By doing so, physicians attempt to start (or induce) your tachycardia so they can understand more about it and decide how best to treat it. If you feel the same symptoms you experienced when the arrhythmia occurred previously, you should tell the electrophysiology (EP) lab staff.

Often these induced arrhythmias stop by themselves; however, if an arrhythmia persists or is very rapid, it may make you feel faint for a moment. If this happens, your doctor may need to deliver electrical therapy to the heart to stop the abnormal rhythm. If you were not in an EP lab these arrhythmias could be very dangerous, perhaps even life-threatening. The well-trained personnel in the EP lab, however, have the equipment and medications necessary to respond appropriately and immediately to these arrhythmias.

The catheter ablation procedure is usually not painful. You may feel some pressure at the sites where the catheters are inserted. It is also not unusual to experience some mild chest discomfort during the application of the high-frequency energy, which is the actual ablation part of the procedure.

Most catheter ablation procedures are completed within two hours, but a complete procedure can last up to six hours or more, which means that you may feel tired and uncomfortable after lying still for such a lengthy period of time.



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