Hi everyone a bit of a shock when I was told my heart beat is out of rhythm I am a 57 year old male, sport has been my life, football from the age of 2 till now played in the army as well as a pt instructor came out and played semi pro got married at 29 and have 4 girls I have a business that my wife runs with me this has been for 27 years.
Here is were the trouble starts
1 you can be too fit there has not been a brake in my life from gym or footie
2 stress I've always been a go out and do guy don't take any disrespect from anyone not a bully but will always stand up for someone who is in trouble I've always been on the edge, a lot as people look up to me.
3 drink don't drink now since I was ablated 2 years ago never really drank much before
4 hot or spicy food a no no always had a good diet with 5 girls around me, at present my heart beats at 40-50 resting not on any pills but its just gone out of rhythm in the last 4 weeks don't even feel it, only way I know its out is when my wife takes my pulse.
We think it was a long haul plane trip 11 hours each way, if my heart went out before I would go in the gym and do 30 mins on the cross trainer and it would be back in rhythm has any one else got the same sort of life as me the doc wanted me to be ablated again but I think its no good for the heart zapping a muscle, I'm on a homoeopathic course with blood thinning and getting my heart beat in rhythm its getting there going to give it 4 more weeks see if it works thanks for reading this I'm not the sort of guy to open up but if someone gets any benefit from my comments that's good.
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Geza10
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Sounds all so familiar around the sport and keeping fit, I was diagnosed march14 (54yrs old) with PAF and TBH have never really come to terms with it, my life over the last say five months is a million miles away from where things were this time last year.
Was ablated three weeks ago, AF is good but I have ended up with other symptoms which is really delaying my recovery.
So did out have two years of NSR after your ablation.
it stayed in beat for 28 weeks now and again it would flip out started looking into food and changed a few things anything with spice or caffeine was ditched it would go out after a stress day or 5 a side football but would always go back in 2-4 hours later it has been like that up to 4 weeks ago but its hard for me to tell when its out don't like taking my pulse all the time it takes over your life try to keep busy
PS cant beat having 4 daughters they keep me upbeat
Wow what an active life you have lived. I was once told that the amount of aerobic exercise I had constantly undergone throughout my life could have been a factor in my AF given that I clearly had a predisposition to it anyway. A number of well known sports people have been diagnosed with it. Lots of things I think can be a trigger and if we have a predisposition to the condition then we become one of the unlucky people who develop a troubling heart issue.
I hope your homeopathic course brings you good things.
Why were you ablated 2 years ago if your AF started 4 weeks ago?
I also developed paroxysmal (occasional) AF after 30 years of competitive squash playing. Hard to give up a sport that I love. I figure 1/3rd of my brain is specialized for squash and has nothing much to do now.
I control AF with low dose flecenaide (50 mg twice a day) and regular but moderate exercise (no competitive squash). I drink very little (maybe 3-4 glasses of red wine per week), and avoid heavy foods / too much red meat. So far it's ok but at some point I'll likely go for ablation.
For you? Well some would just advise you to go for your second ablation. The heart heals - and the only part of your heart that will be "zapped" is bad, dysfunctional tissue that you really don't want hanging about screwing up your heart rhythm. I say if you can't control it via medication, best to zap it and let the remaining healthy tissue get the job done properly.
I first noticed in October 2012 while playing a football match felt short of breath which is not like me went to the doctor was sent straight to hospital and had an ablation in March 2013.
I did not get any symptoms until August 2013 when I notice certain things put the heart out of rhythm but always went back in after exercise, (I must point out my heartbeat has always been 45bpm), my heart has been going in and out since then, this March it stayed out and has not gone back in, heart is still beating around 45-60bpm (resting) and after exercise 110bpm.
Sadly you are just one more sportoholic who has brought this onto themselves. This is a well known phenomena like fast jet pilots in the military and other adrenaline junkies. I never was much at physical sports but fifty years in the motor sport industry and allied stress probably did it for me. Time to accept that we humans are not meant to live like that and chill some Geza. It would be a crime to undo any hard work from the doctors by doing it all again wouldn't it? You don't have to give it all up. Just slow down and accept that life changes.
Your spot on but you are what you are i would have still done all the sport and lived my life the way i have like you said stress is the main culprit no one can get away from that i do chill more now then i did but hey there's worse things out there then af
I know exactly where you are coming from and there will be others on this forum who are very similar to yourself. I too have had a very physical and active life. I was at a professional club from the age of 8 until being released at 18, then carried on through the semi pro leagues up until being 41 when I found out I had AF in 2012. My lifestyle has all been about sport and exercise. I started boxing and MMA training in my late 30's loving the physical challenge it gave me. It's a drug and it's so hard to explain to people how much of a high I get from it, especially when I am told "Isn't it time you took it easy? Maybe take up golf"!! My job is in the IT industry and I'm sat behind a desk for the best part of it, so need a physical hobby to relieve the stress.
I was placed on an anti-arrhythmic drug when first diagnosed with AF and that worked very well. I am fortunate that my AF is quite asymptomatic when I have an episode and in the past hitting the gym and going on the exercise bike used to bring me back into rhythm. To cut a long story short that medicine caused me other issues and I then had about 8 months of not being well and unable to do what I loved. I have since had an ablation and so far so good. Anyway, I've bored you enough about my background.
You say you had an ablation, how long ago was that? One thing we get told is that the ablation may not be a permanent fix, but if it give us a better quality of life for several years, then surely it can't be that bad a thing. I'll be honest, I didn't want one, I would rather take pills for the rest of my life if there were no side effects, however that option kind of ran out for me. We can all hope for a cure for AF, but I suspect over the next few years the best we can hope for is progression with the treatments and medicines to keep it at bay.
Sorry i did not mention when the ablation was carried out it was march 2013 so it lasted just under 2 years we seem to have the same sort of life style, as you said cant see me playing golf so boring i need movement and a rush which only comes in fast sport i have cut down to 2 games of 5 or 7 a side footie a week but still go in the gym every day as i mentioned to another member its impossible to cut out sport after its been your life, taking homoeopathic treatment now to see if it goes back in beat if not ablate it, me personally Jason i think its stress your body can take a lot but eventually something has to give .
Guys nothing wrong with golf, play it enough and u will be surprised what good exercise it is, I was the same when I finished football, golf was the last thing I would of thought of getting into.
In the summer months I would play golf puts five times a week
Also the challenge of playing it well was the fix for me, I pretty much took to all sports growing up, but golf is by far the hardest to crack.
Tried it 15 years ago to much testosterone in me got frustrated with guys talking to much instead of getting on with it hey everyone to there own not me mick
I agree. It's the one sport my husband can't do ! He is completely perplexed by this as he has been good at pretty much all other sports involving a ball.He gave up golf as it was too challenging! X
Seems to the case with golf, I have friends who loathe the game only because they never got to grips with it when they attempted to play it, the majority who were all sporty mainly football.
TBH the first year I played clubs went in the bin as I was crap, couple of years later took it up seriously and was hooked and became pretty decent, am totally lost weekends without any golf.
So I came to this via sport - my vice was racing (ie athletics, X-country). I have heard it said that the excercise makes the heart chambers work differently and thats the cause of AF in some people. Not heard of stress as a cause. I have persistent AF, rate about 90/min at rest. Twice wht it was when i raced - ho hum! Beware the beta blockers as they will make you lethargic/tired.
What are you trying homeopathically - and do you mean homeopathics or holistics?
The lady who has started me on the sugar pills has 40 years of homoeopath behind her my wife got me to have a consultation with her i thought id give it a go see what happens
I don't remember my doctors ever telling me that I was doing too much exercise. My yearly physicals were just walk through s. Felt fine , on no meds,no issues then one day I wasn't fine. Now they say over exercising and stress can bring on Afib. I'm like the rest of you. In hind site don't think I would have changed much. I've had to modify my workouts due to my conditions but I'm ok with that. As I've said before, I'm a lot better off than other folks out there.
As I understand it, it's endurance sports like long distance cycling and marathon running that are linked to AF (I'm guessing because of the length of time at one go that the heart is being challenged), but possibly only if you already have that pre-disposition already. I used to run marathons but since a (thus far) successful ablation last May, I've been AF free. I'm back to training much as I did before, but my EP has capped my distance at 10 miles (so no more marathons or half marathons). I don't regret running the 4 marathons I did, but neither am I bothered that I can't run them anymore. I've also read that if you have AF, doing interval training is the better way of training and I used to do this when I was in AF. That said, I always make sure I warm up properly and keep an eye on my heart rate monitor.
Did you remain AF free from day one, as I am now nearly a month post ablation and AF wise all was good, and then yesterday from nowhere from late afternoon and through the night and an irregular beat with ectopics, this has all been explained by EP and posts on this forum, but I am concerned as to how long it went on for.
Mick - I had a couple of episodes within the first two weeks, but then touch wood nothing. I do get lots of ectopics though - some days more noticeable than others. I had a 48 hour monitor on a couple of months ago and my EP said they're nothing to worry about - but because in the past they've brought on the AF, I can't help but worry, although I do less then in the early post-ablation days. I think the nature of AF is that we stress over these ectopics that others probably wouldn't even notice. Sometimes they really take my breath away although the runs don't last for long. I do hear my heart thumping away for no reason sometimes as well. I'm not a medic, but if ectopics are all they are, then I would try not to worry. With regards to the exercise, if we never did anything that potentially led to some ailment, then frankly, we'd never get out of bed. That said, my EP's attitude has always been to go out and live my life, but obviously, having had a successful ablation, I'd look pretty silly if I went on running marathons and it all came back again. Good luck with your continuing recovery, but if you're still concerned, then I think a chat with your EP or an ablation nurse might put your mind at rest.
Agree on the exercise points totally, my wife has tried to get me to do more other than just walks but so wrapped up in my thoughts of AF coming on again I keep just backing off, this in line with other side effects of the ablation.
hope to at least some golf in fir starters then defo back to work Monday, I am done with Netflix😳
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