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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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