Hey Melissa, I'm a two timer, AF wise. My first was a year ago, far less painful than the present one (you will see some of my posts around here). This time, when I finally got to my CRS, he took one peak and set a date. I'm going in on Monday for my LIS, and I am looking forward to what I hope will be another success story.
Per everything I've read, LIS is a pretty straight forward procedure, with a high rate of success, and low rate of problems, and even among those, most appear slight.
My CRS has 24 years of experience and is highly rated. That is in addition to my previous happy experience when he performed Colonoscopy and removal of four benign polyps last year. That procedure was totally painless for me.