Conquering Atrial Fibrillation

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innovative treatment

A few months later, Mellanie was in her home office plowing through e-mail when her heart skipped a few beats. She felt dizzy. “My right leg was cold, and the vision in my right eye was blurry,” she says.

Blood clots had lodged in her leg and behind her eye, bringing her dangerously close to suffering a stroke. The cause was atrial fibrillation, also known as afib, a disorder in which the heart flutters rapidly rather than beating steadily. Mellanie’s heart disease made her susceptible to afib, which also can contribute to the formation of blood clots.

A Fluttering Heart
Atrial fibrillation, caused by misfiring electrical signals through the heart, affects about 2.2 million Americans, according to the American Heart Association. While many people experience occasional heart fluttering, those with afib suffer an ongoing condition that damages the heart, possibly even requiring a transplant.

Mellanie’s doctor put her on the blood-thinner Coumadin and banned air travel and simple chores like gardening, because even small cuts could lead to excessive bleeding. She began investigating how to fix her heart.

“No offense to my husband and son, but my heart comes first,” Mellanie says. “If I’m not taking care of it, then I can’t take care of them. I need to be attuned to my heart.”

Her research led her to cardiothoracic surgeons Charles G. Reiter, M.D., and Erik A. Beyer, M.D., at the Scott & White Heart and Vascular Institute in Temple, Texas.

“Mellanie was at a higher risk of afib because of her earlier heart episode,” Beyer says. The doctors proposed an innovative surgery called a minimaze. The relatively new procedure breaks up the erratic electrical signals that cause abnormal heartbeats. The surgery is performed through small incisions between the ribs, allowing the surgeon to have access to the heart without cracking the rib cage. The heart continues to beat during the procedure, reducing the chance of complications.

Complete in about three hours, a minimaze is less invasive than other forms of afib surgery, which means patients recover more quickly.

“When I do this procedure, it’s not uncommon to see the heart immediately resume normal beating,” says Beyer, a surgeon for more than 12 years.

“After the procedure, I felt my heart shift gears,” Mellanie says. “There was a huge difference. Now I can walk back onto a plane. It restored my freedom.”