An aborted ablation procedure but positive experience

28F, diagnosed in 2023

I’ve been symptomatic on and off since 2015, finally getting a proper diagnosis in 2023. Last year, my symptoms started happening multiple times a month. I revisited my cardiologist, who did a 30 day event monitor, and they ultimately made the decision to move forward with an EP study with the goal of ablating my accessory pathway.

Today I went in for the EP study, and I had a fantastic team. They were informative, calm, cool, and collected. Truly couldn’t have felt more comfortable. The EP doc said he felt that my pathway was on the right side based on my EKG.

Turns out, my pathway is next to my AS node. For those unfamiliar, that would be the node responsible for your heart beating appropriately. The “natural pacemaker” if you will. The decision was made to not ablate now, as the risk of ablating my AS node was too great.

Now, waking up from anesthesia and learning this information was rather emotional, because I’m symptomatic and tired of this shit and just want it to be over. But after fully processing this information, I’m really happy with my team and the plan.

They absolutely could have tried to ablate today, but risked hitting my AS node and putting me on a pacemaker. Instead, they want to do everything they can to NOT have to put a pacemaker in me or put me on lifelong medications.

My EP doc wants me to do a stress test within the next month, and retry the ablation within the next 3 months with more 3D equipment and the data from the stress test to help guide the ablation.

If that doesn’t work, then we will try meds which will be a lifelong change.

If those do not work and I continue to have episodes, then I will get a pacemaker.

I cannot tell you guys how at ease I feel about this whole process. The care team has a good plan in place, communicated it well, and aren’t making me wait an insane amount of time to address it. They’re on top of it, making sure this gets done, and did not leave me in the dark. I was so worried this would be a scary and vague process but it’s been the opposite.

If your pathway was also by your SA node, what was your experience? Did you eventually end up getting in managed?