Atrial Fibrillation: When The Questions Outnumber The Answers
You may have heard that AF is a tough disease to understand. Questions far outnumber answers.
What causes AF?
Why do some not feel it at all, while others are incapacitated?
What’s the best treatment? Drugs? Ablation? Surgery? No treatment?
Should I take a blood thinner…and which one?
Where should one go for the best AF care?
This short email from a reader captures the essence of AF support group mayhem:
Ablate, don’t ablate, cardiovert, maze, mini-maze, no… 5 Box, cryo, hot, no cold, hybrid, balloon, ring, lariat, watchman, cut, don’t cut, take meds, rhythm control…no rate control, CHADS, no… CHADS2, no… CHA2DS2VaSC, no…left atrial size, no… fibrosis, alpha/beta/calcium channel blockers, magnesium/potassium /taurine, don’t take taurine, do something now, no wait… they are making advances, Bordeaux, no… Austin, no… Cleveland, no… San Francisco, no U Penn, no Johns Hopkins, yoga, no… reiki, no… epsom salt baths, exercise more, exercise less, niacin, niacin bad, aspirin, no…Coumadin, no…Pradaxa, no…rivaroxaban and apixaban … geesh! This is the only disease that they can’t make up their minds about. If I put these words in the right order, you could sing them to the Billy Joel song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire”!
Looks like I still have a few more blog topics left.
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
They’ve known the treatment for Atrial Fibrillation for quite some time.
“Remission of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation with iron reduction”
“Iron reduction may be an effective treatment for arrhythmias”