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In January 2011, after more than
a week of suffering from what he
thought was a terrible cold, 46-year-
old Andy Bone made an appoint-
ment with his primary care doctor.
“My cough was so bad that I
couldn’t lie down, and I felt really
run-down,” Andy says. “But I figured
I was stressed out from just finishing
out the year at work.”
Andy expected to get a prescription
to treat his symptoms and be on the
road to recovery. But he quickly found
himself on a different path, with a
referral to local cardiologist and heart
rhythm specialist John Telles, MD.
An EKG revealed that Andy was in
atrial fibrillation (AF), the most com-
mon type of abnormal heart rate – or
arrhythmia – in which the heartbeat is
fast and irregular.
In a normal heart, an electrical
impulse signals the four chambers
to contract in a very organized man-
ner, allowing the heart to pump all
the blood your body needs. With
AF, however, the electrical impulse
misfires, causing the upper and lower
chambers of the heart to fall out of
sync. As a result, the heart can’t pump
blood efficiently and the body is de-
prived of its needed supply.
KEEP AN EYE OUT
FOR SYMPTOMS
With no family history of heart dis-
ease and no other known risk factors,
Andy never suspected his symptoms
were heart-related, nor did he have
any indication that his heart wasn’t
Atrial fibrillation
When your heart’s
rhythm is out of sync
HEART
HEALTH
beating in a regular pattern.
“What I felt was similar to when
you’ve had a little too much coffee or
your adrenaline is high,” Andy says.
AF symptoms may include:
•
Pulse that feels rapid, racing,
pounding, fluttering, irregular or
too slow
•
Sensation of feeling the heart beat
(palpitations)
•
Confusion
•
Dizziness or lightheadedness
•
Fainting
•
Fatigue
•
Loss of ability to exercise
•
Shortness of breath
NORMALIZING THE RHYTHM
Atrial fibrillation may stop or start on
its own. Andy’s heart, however, had
to be electrically shocked back into a
normal rhythm – a treatment known
as cardioversion.
While effective, this was not a
long-term solution. To help manage
his condition, Andy began taking a
variety of medications – up to 12 pills
per day.
“I felt way too young to be on all
this medication, and even with it,
I had to be cardioverted four more
times – and with each I was off work
at least a day and a half.”
Too many meds and too many
missed hours of work prompted
Andy to undergo a minimally inva-
sive procedure called radiofrequency
ablation to destroy the abnormal
cells in his heart’s muscle that were
causing his rhythm problems.
To pinpoint these areas, Dr. Telles
and the skilled electrophysiology
team at Saint Agnes used a sophisti-
cated 3-D mapping system to per-
form what’s called an electrophysiol-
ogy (EP) study. Tiny tubes, called
electrode catheters, are threaded
through the veins in the groin or
neck area and passed into the heart
to measure the speed and flow of
the heart’s electrical signals.
Once the abnormal pathways are
identified, radiofrequency energy is
transmitted through the catheter to
ablate, or eliminate, the problem cells.
Though nervous about the pro-
cedure, Andy could take comfort
knowing that he was in the best
possible hands. A fellow of the Heart
Rhythm Society, Dr. Telles specializes
in EP studies and has been perform-
ing them at Saint Agnes for more
than 25 years.
“As technology advances, so
have the number of EP studies at
Saint Agnes,” Dr. Telles says. “We
can do more today – with greater
precision – to diagnose and treat
various arrhythmias.”
This is good news for Valley pa-
tients like Andy. Since having the
ablation in August 2012, his AF has
not come back. “I feel absolutely
great now,” he says.
If you are experiencing symptoms
or have been diagnosed with AF or
another arrhythmia, ask your doctor
if you might be a candidate for an
EP study at Saint Agnes. Or call
559-450-2000
to be referred
to one of our EP specialists.
Winter 2013
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