Sleep

[Elaine1951]

How do all you AF sufferers sleep ? Well, poorly, fits and starts ?

[Hidden]

Usually like a log I'm glad to say 😴 💤💤💤

[Elaine1951]

Vv lucky !

[jennydog]

Very well. I would be demented if I suffered from insomnia.

[PeterWh]

If I only wake up once in the night I think that's a good result.

Sometimes I wake up with a jolt caused by I don't know what.

Other times desperately wanting a pee but do very little. So I know the AF / the heart has been playing up and is excreting the chemicals. Sometimes with bad taste in mouth.

[Polski in reply to PeterWh]

The jolt may be caused by some sort of sleep apnea.

Also, have you had your prostate checked? (Forgive me asking, but it is so easy to put such problems down to AF and not realise that something else may be coming knocking . . . and that is best treated sooner rather than later!)

[PeterWh in reply to Polski]

Good suggestions. I do have mild sleep apnoea (I was assessed May last year and am due for a retest this month). I also had prostrate checked because when I got up in the night to go for a pee I was quite regularly only doing a little and then it was a dribble. In fact result was low so that was good.

[checkmypulse in reply to PeterWh]

Peter, just a thought. Like you I needed to pee often (day and night) but struggled to 'do much', dribbles at times. Psa was so very low, less than 0.1, it seemed I was clear of cancer. GP did a finger test, sent me to hospital, biopsy etc and this revealed I had the cancer after all. Mild or early stage thank goodness. Had the prostate removed 5 years ago and so far all ok. Just to prove that, like a lot of science, that things aren't always black and white. Just info for you, hope you don't mind.

[PeterWh in reply to checkmypulse]

Don't mind at all. GP arranged PSA blood test and then I went back to see her for finger check (she did it this way so finger check wouldn't possibly cause any false results). Normally during the day I deliver a good stream and don't have problems with dribbles or little bits except when I have AF playing up (feel it or get sweaty and clammy). I am in persistent AF.

In fact I appreciate your response.

[checkmypulse in reply to PeterWh]

Good man, glad you had it followed through. Best wishes.

[PeterWh in reply to checkmypulse]

Well I thought it unlikely to be prostrate and almost certainly AF but wasn't going to take that chance. GP also said prudent to check. It had taken me quite a few months to twig.

Interestingly GP said good that I hadn't tried to self test/ feel prostrate.

[mrsg46]

It's very rare for me to sleep the night through, but I guess I've got used to it. Would be lovely though.

[CCW66]

Up at least twice a night..sigh. Have Ativan and this helps.

[Hidden]

Hi Elaine,

Crap ! is the word ! However, I must say I don't blame my AF for it - I am convinced that it is related to the fact that for the last 25 years I have been a bus driver, a shift worker working quite often as many as 3 different shift patterns during the course of a 6 day week. This absolutely destroys normal sleep rhythms.

Nowadays though, I still work 30 to 40 hours a week, depending on the season driving a tourist bus with no shifts involved, just standard daytime hours between 07.15 and 17.15. When I've been working I sleep well and right through the night, when I've been at home relaxing I sleep crap and most often wake about 2 pm sometimes for a pee sometimes not. Stay up for an hour or so, go back to bed and sleep for another 4 hours. I usually go to bed between 9 and 10, sometimes later !

So Elaine - make sense of that - but no I can't blame AF.

John

[Tobw in reply to Hidden]

I took a year's unpaid leave off work ages ago to "write my book" and so had to live off what was going to be my "inheritance", but I couldn't get this notion that my mum was paying for my Saturday nights out from my mind, so I became a paper boy for the year and my wage paid for my weekly booze up. Trouble is, getting up at around 4.30 am affected my sleep pattern and I've never been able to regain it. These days, I'm seldom awake after 10 o clock and always manage to get four or five hours sleep in, but once I wake up at about 2 or 3 in the morning, it's very intermittent after that - sometimes I don't go back to sleep and I can't remember the last time I was still asleep at 5 am, but, like you, I don't put it down to my AF because my problems started long before it's onset.

[Hidden in reply to Tobw]

Exactly, Tobw, exactly. I had been working these shift patterns for some 18 years before AF hit me.

[Hidden]

No real pattern but not well. An exceptional night, like last night, is 7 hours with one break for a pee. Normally, it's two breaks a night and a broken 6 hours sleep. Quite often I can have 3,4, 5 breaks in the night for a lot of pee, which may be the heart excreting chemicals (with AF controlled by Flecainide) or a bladder irritated by the drug/supplements/something spicy I eat at night or too much fluids or just the fact that I am a 62yo bloke with an enlarged prostate. My hunch is it is not AF related.

[Elaine1951]

Thank you everyone who responded. Seems there are very many poor sleepers out there up and down and tossing and turning. We are Jr. Alone but it's miserable ! I believe that tired contributes to AF

[PeterWh in reply to Elaine1951]

And AF does contribute to tiredness and bad sleeping. Catch 22!!!

[PeterWh]

Elaine

You can see there are many poor sleepers on here just by looking at the times replies are written late evening, through the night and very early mornings (though a few of the latter will be doing theirs before heading off to work).

[Elaine1951 in reply to PeterWh]

Indeed. It strikes a real chord with us all

[Marion62]

For at least the last 15 years I have had to get up during the night three to five times to go to the bathroom. I usually give up trying to get back to sleep if it is after 6 am and just listen to the radio before getting up around 7.30. It seems to make no difference if I drink ( decaf tea) late evening or not. Have forgotten what a good nights sleep feels like.

[eleanor--1941]

I sleep on 3 good filled pillows,my top body well above my heart,since doing this over the past few years,AF has got much less,as I always have it evenig or during the night.I am also on Pill in the pocket,Flecainide 300mg only when an episode comes on as I have Paroxysmal AF,PIP is prescribed by Cardiologist,my AF

lasts about 40mins to 2hrs then I am fine again.

Hope this helps Elaine,keep well.

Best regards,

Eleanor,x

[cbsrbpm]

Very badly, awake hourly for no reason at all. This has been going on for years. If I get three hours without waking I think I have done very well.

[maryjc]

Mostly I wake every 1 to two hours, go for a pee and then have no difficulty getting back to sleep for the next hour. For some reason though this pattern stops about 5,00am and I don't wake till about 8.30am. Most annoying but I have always been an owl rather than a lark! I am certain that the broken nights are due to my persitant AF since I slept well until it kicked in much more. Mary

[Hidden]

Not well at all until I bought a Mattress Geni!! The difference was astounding and I get a decent nights sleep and no nightmares!!

[Polski]

I sleep far better since I started taking magnesium to 'help' the AF!

(Magnesium oxide is very poorly absorbed. Citrate is better, and there are others which are better still) It is important not to take so much that you get diorrhea, but you can use a spray (try a health food shop) eg on your legs, which then avoids the digestive system altogether.

Try one spray at a time to start with - If it stings that shows that you really do need it. When your levels have increased you can spray on much more without any problems.

[higgy52]

Slept well till got put on Amiodarone, now dont,

[jeanjeannie50]

Not too well, I wake several times in the night and sometimes around 3am have difficulty getting back to sleep. I find the quieter, calmer life I lead the better I sleep. Also, I notice that if I eat certain foods this can affect my sleep.

I'm very aware that certain creams I use on my skin have an affect too. At the moment I'm convinced that showering daily using Neil's Yard almond soap (additive free) helps. May be all in the mind, but hey it works! Have run out, so not sleeping too well right now and am off today to get more. Will report back on how it goes.

Jean

[Elaine1951]

As you say, whatever works!

E