Ectopic beats and Vagus nerve - Atrial Fibrillati...
Ectopic beats and Vagus nerve
O....M....G !
That's just described me to a T and runs so close to what I've posted on here many a time - that is, calm the vagal nerve, calm the heart.
And on this subject, my partner just celebrated her 70th (on 23 July) and so we had a birthday bash with visitors using our place like a revolving door, many days of celebrations with food and booze !
Then, on Sunday 30th I felt off colour. Heart rate dropped to around 50 ish bpm. So I went to bed clutching a hot water bottle to my chest and (slept on and off from about 10 am till 5 pm) for England. Woke up feeling crap but with my heart rate normal, around 65 to 70. During this process I went so cold, not my outer skin/flesh but the meat inside, particularly my arms.
Then ate evening meal as usual around 6 pm. Bed by 10 pm then in the early hours I spent 90 minutes in and out of the bathroom. Not much sleep after that, up at 5 am and off to work by 6.30 am - you'd never know anything had happened.
Clearly the revolving door celebrations over many days had inflamed/aggravated the vagal nerve and it got its own back by hitting the heart then the digestive system.
John
Reassuring to know that you have soothed the angry giant. Are you still following the FODMAP recommendations?
Hi Peddling,
I have never followed FODMAPS exclusively as I found it either too severe or too aggressive. So I've picked bits from it in the beginning of this vagal journey and maintain this programme. Must say though that since I started I have gone 'Added Sugar' free. I am a 'dried fruit nibbler' and have had to cut this down to a bare, bare minimum. Yet I can handle white grapes now and then, same for dates - almost the case of a great little in extreme moderation!
John
There is a small book entitled 'How to Heal Your Vagal nerve' - available for download for a few about £2 - with good advice, similar to that outlined but more detail.
I am hoping that our local support group will do a session on vagal nerve and how to improve Vagal tone.
I was very disappointed that AliveCor stopped recording HRV numbers because people complained they didn't understand them - this is one of the best measures we have of indicating vagal tone - as any elite athelete will tell you as they can get a bit obsessive about their numbers!
Also look at the work of HeartMath who describe HRV very well and have worked within clinical settings researching AF and had good results from improving vagal tone. Unfortunately that research paper seems no longer available so I can't give you the link.
HRV explained - extract from heartmath.org/support/faqs/...
Heart rate variability (HRV) is the normal, naturally occurring variations or changes in the amount of time between heartbeats. This is different than your overall heart rate – the number of beats that occur in any given minute. Physiological coherence is derived from HRV. Coherence is a measure of the pattern in the heart’s rhythm, which is independent of the amount of HRV, and reflects an orderly and harmonious synchronization among various systems in the body such as the heart, respiratory system and blood-pressure rhythms. The amount of coherence we have in our heart’s rhythms can be measured with a monitoring device
Good advice - thanks for posting.
Thank you very much for the information, Sadly many in the medical profession seem not aware or concerned of the effect of the vagal nerve on AF patients
Yeah, I totally agree seasider18.
Absolutely & I don't get why not?
I think I remember reading about stimulating the vagal nerve with small electrical charges to the ear that helped AF.
I also asked my EP about it and he said "early days "
Is this correct?
Pete
Yes I recall an article on this, I think your EP is correct but exciting Future for those of us with vagally mediated Lone AF.
Thanks Seasider, the Vagus Nerve is the main culprit as far as I am concerned. I have worked to calm it on all fronts and slowly getting there.
I found it a long term process over several years. End result no AF event now since April 2015.
I have however had to be very careful with my diet which could be generally summed up as bland and boring ! there are times when my food desires get the better of me and something innocently gets eaten (or I binge) and either my heart gets set off or my digestive system rebels, and on occasions like on Sunday that I described both get a whammy !
But at least no AF !
John
I am the same John e.g. often for my evening meal I just have baked beans and not much else with it and that seems to settle the gut better than anything else.
I think part of my past AF problem has been that I like eating any amount of different things often together and too fast.
Very, very slowly it seems to be dripping through as I have now found a couple of heart specialists who work with Autonomic Dysfunction - vagal is part of the Autonomic Nervous System or ANS.
We experience the connection but it is evidently not as rare as they think. I went back into AF after a colonoscopy stimulated my vagus nerve and again after a rectal examination by a urologist. The urologist later said that he had heard of it happening but not had any patients report it to him.
I found the 'how to deal with panic attacks' section at the end, very interesting.
CBT by another name.
Yes - but I thought it was well presented for someone who had not met the approach before, or hadn't met it applied to panic attacks.
A sore subject with me. I was impressed with a company involved in CBT. They had courses for company employees and home courses. The got NHS contracts and were FDA approved. Only problem was they ran out of money and their main backer withdrew support.
Unfortunately that is it what happens when NHS contracts goes to lowest bidders. And they usually paid their counsellors minimum wage or relied upon volunteer trainees, which is what counselling services within GP practices did/do, and unfortunately there is no or little supervision of the quality of the service delievered.
There are quite a lot of sites on the web with free courses and lots and lots of information.
For me CBT is only a part of solution, a useful part when integrated into a rounded approach. I like the Human Givens approach to Anxiety and Panic Attacks - which is an integrated approach.
All good, sound advice in the article.
Have you heard of Autogenic Therapy/relaxation? My last GP took a year off to do a course on it. He then decided in 2005 that he wanted to give up being a GP and run classes in it and one to one sessions with private and NHS patients.
No I haven't - have you any information?
Just Google it and references will come up. For the UK your post code will bring up a practitioners in your area. There seems to be plenty of them.
Wikipedia says:
Autogenic training has been said to be contraindicated for people with heart conditions (e.g., individuals who have recently experienced myocardial infarction)
guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/reso...
Thanks- I am struggling to see how this is different from Yoga techniques such as Yoga Nidra.
Although I completely agree with the ideas and the technique my cynic eye thinks - marketing. Nothing wrong with that but can't see anything novel above it it.
It's been around since the 1930's
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autog...
Thanksfor that link. It is amazing just how these ancienttechniques get rediscovered, renamed and re-marketed. It seems seems exactlylike Yoga Nidra - having read much more about it now. Whatever we call it, I have found it a very helpfulpractice thoughfor the life of me I cannotunderstand why it should be contra-indicated for MI? I get why it would be for psychosis though!
Sorry if this is off topic but it does affect many of us and it will probably happen more with other health conditions in the future..
Another dreadful decision way back with the last Labour government was to lay down a framework to create MSK (musculoskeletal Services). It took until 2015 for the Conservatives to actually get it off the ground. It allowed private companies and NHS Trusts to bid for the service in local areas. Most of the time the contracts have gone to the private companies who were each given hundreds of millions to run them for I think seven years on a non profit making basis. Non profit making but the company owners running them can pay themselves as much as they like.
If the NHS got the contract you are seen at an NHS hospital. With a private company they say they have localised it for the patient convenience. Our local one has five or six sites. In fact they offer patients the location most suitable for themselves no matter how inconvenient it may be for the patient. I get offered ones that are two bus rides away and then down a country lane. Naturally I always refuse them.
They also run some podiatry services I was sent an appointment for a clinic over twenty miles away that I turned down.
Local GPs are not in favour of the service and cannot specify who they want you to see nor sadly are most of the consultants employed by it.. Some consultants are NHS also working for MSK others are from private clinics.
At least one company Circle Health (Circle Holdings) have been taken over by a multi national company since the Guardian article.
theguardian.com/business/20...
Another Circle Health one in Greenwich had lost their contract early this year after a public outcry.
An Ex Asda director runs one and an ex prison governor another. Many companies running loss making care homes saw the opportunity and sold out to bid for MSK contracts.
The reality is that private companies can deliver the services at lower cost, but it is really hard to make profit. I think the non-for-profit companies such as BUPA and The Nuffield have done well over the years.
We just cannot afford the Health Service as has developed over the last 70 years because it was set in such a piecemeal fashion and too many politicians have been using it as a football over the decades,
The NHS has more quangos than any other organisation and the governance is so complicated that no one except an expert in large organisational management can understand it.
GPs have always been run as private business funded through contracts with the NHS - a detail few people are aware of or choose to forget.
The trouble is that because the funding has been 'adjusted' so many times it is now very, very difficult to survive financially unless you are a very large practice - which is why so many small practices in rural areas are disappearing.
Personally I am against a solely state run Health Service. But I do think there needs to a be a major rethink of how Health Services and Social Services are funded, delivered and governed.
State run is not good and private bad - both need ethical management, solid governance and proper funding.
My view is that services should be organised for efficiency and efficacy and should be integrated so left hand knows what right is trying to achieve. That unfortunately sometimes means that services cannot be always provided locally.
I live in hope of change!
A part answer for the moment. I was speaking to a young doctor in A&E and it transpired that she was from the area in Surrey where we used to live. Her father is a GP as are her brothers. Her father now has eight practices in in the Surrey/ Wimbledon area.
I noticed last time we visited the area that the practice I used to go was now run by his two sons.
Interesting. I was talking to a GP Practice Manager and she was saying that the future can only go one way - to large practices with multi-skilled practitioners so I can see that we may see GP chains appearing, run by business orientated managers who have the skills to chase and manage the funding.
It would not be a bad idea if we had larger practices that were more like American 'Offices' or Vets
We have to put up with long waiting times but our pets are seen and treated quickly.
When we lived in Edinburgh they closed quite a few hospitals including the Royal Infirmary to sell to developers. The new Infirmary was built way out on the edge of the city and they opened several community treatment centres to cover many hospital procedures.
nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk/Goin...
You may already be aware of this site but reading through my guess is that they are realising it IS very, very hard to make money out of health care in the UK.
nhsforsale.info/private-pro...
Thanks for that link it should have more to interest me on it. Pretty much what I had already said about Circle. I'm amazed that local 'Save our hospital groups' have not protested at this situation.
Soon the privatised health companies will be like our ex public utilities and be foreign owned. I was in favour of privatisation but it was a big mistake not to make them fireproof from predators.
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