Nurse

[Mazza23]

When I had my cv this morning the nurse gave me her explanation of why in my case I have AF every 4to 6weeks she said think of your heart as a bit of memory foam once it has made a memory it keeps going back to it . As good as anything I supose

[Elaine1951]

sounds a sensible concept. Our bodies do have memories are rely on habit

[Hidden]

Interesting Mazza. Many have said here that AF begets more AF and I suppose the opposite is true the longer you are AF Free the more likely the heart will 'forget' and you will stay that way. I was told by a speaker (a doctor who had had AF) at the B'rum AF Day a couple of years ago that to stay on Flecainide for at least 2 years even though you are AF Free.

Have a great day.

[Mazza23 in reply to Hidden]

I can't take flecanide as I have heart failure

[Eliza2 in reply to Hidden]

Well I guess that explains why the EP was pushing the flecainide after the ablation. Tough to take though on my stomach. Did that doctor say how much flecainide for 2 years?

[Eliza2 in reply to Hidden]

Orchardworker did you know dosage that the doctor was taking for 2 years after the ablation?

[cali111]

You could probably equate this simplistic explanation to having a fault in a record which only engages every so many turns. AF is electrical and faults in electricity can and do show themselves intermittently. I prefer to see mine as this and hope with an ablation they will be able to pinpoint the irregular part of the firing in my heart. Hope this helps for you. It is not nice to be treated like some one who doesn`t understand much.

[Hidden]

G'day Mazza,

That's an interesting take on it - must say !

I have always maintained that one reason why I got away with AF so lightly is that my diagnosis and treatment started within 9 hours on onset ! Probably one of the quickest diagnosis I have ever read about.

So - using this theory from your nurse, I guess my diagnosis was so quick that the memory didn't get a chance to mould the memory foam - if you see what I mean.

John

[Bagrat in reply to Hidden]

Yes me too John. And E cardioverted later the same day and meds started.

[Lorna058 in reply to Hidden]

I agree, mine was diagnosed and dealt with so fast my feet hardly touched the ground! Someone on here said it was the Northern Powerhouse in action

[BobD Volunteer]

It is a very simplistic but useful analogy aimed at those who do not understand what AF is. We have rogue electrical pathways which in some cases open up and allow signals through. This can be due to overload of the normal pathways through extra demand such as exercise or perhaps because of extra nerve activity (vagus). Every time this happens the pathways become more established (AF begets AF) and when those take on the mantle of "normal" then yet more start to form.

I think that this may well be why ablation often needs to be repeated. The well established rogue pathways are easy to spot and ablate but those not yet fully working are dormant at the time and only start to fire off when the originals are blocked.

Mazza, sorry to hear of you experience but at least now you will know what an ICD feels like and be able to sympathise with those so fitted.

Bob

[Mazza23 in reply to BobD]

Sure do Bob trust me they won't be doing it like that again

[davee]

Something tells me there is some sense to that. My af is mainly at the end /start of the month. I have been diagnosed with paf and even had an ablation that seems not to have worked as I hoped. I thought it happened because that was when I did my monthly shopping, and always wore myself out carrying too much in one go.

[traveler65 in reply to davee]

@davee Overdoing physical activity whether the gym or domestic chores such as shopping and carrying packages, will put one into afib etc.; the idea of mAking the heqrt learn to be normal seems realistic but is a long proceess. My afib existed for qa long time, as in years, because t was infrequent and so mild it had no great symptoms and was not always evident on ekg; also some cardiologists Isaw had the ridiculous idea that if I did not feel certain symptoms that everythi ng was fine. A friend of mine who is a nurse had 2 ablations, before which whenever she went to a cardiologist due to rapid heart rate-- the ekg and heartrate was normal. She spent most of a month with holter monitors on 24 hrs a day to finally have it notd.

[GrandmaM]

This discussion corresponds with my son's neurologist's comment that the brain can "learn" to have seizures and that's one reason to try and minimize their occurrence . And my son's first epileptic incident was when he was extremely tired after a lot of overtime on his job. Epilepsy is caused by errant electrical activity in the brain, but I never thought about it being similar to what is occurring in the heart.

[CDreamer]

Mmmm. My AF was so chaotic and random that certainly didn't apply to me.

I do think that it is linked to autonomic responses which is of course linked to Circadian Rhythms. I completely gave up trying to correlate triggers as every time I thought I had a connection - it changed.

[Mazza23 in reply to CDreamer]

Me to I have kept a diary of everything I eat drink do nothing matches