My first post after discovering this website only this evening after suffering from bouts of AF over the last 16 yers or so (I'm 63 years old). The bouts got that bad in intensity and regularity at the beginning of 2016 I was put on the NHS waiting list for an ablation.
My main reason for my post is that I though I had found a cure for my AF (and still think I may have).
In the middle of last September I stopped drinking tea and coffee of any kind and after a Weetabix breakfast I started to have a small glass of pure orange juice with a quarter teaspoon of salt mixed in.
On the 1st of October last year my AF stopped completely. Plus I had far less ectopic beats than I used to have. My appoinmnet came through for my ablation in January of this year but they advised me that they didn't want to do it as I hadn't had any symptoms for over three months.
Unfortunately, after a 70 mile bike ride last weekend I had a 12 hour bout of AF. This made me think that it's probably drinking the orange juice with salt rather than stopping drinking tea and coffee that could be the cure. With the amount of sweat caused by the 70 mile ride my body would have been very much short of salt. I did try the glass of orange and salt while in AF but it didn't manage to stop it. In the end I took 250mg of Flecainide (which I've been advised by my consultant not to take because he reckons I have heart failure (is it possible to cycle 70 mileat 16.1 MPH with heart failure?). Anyway. I'm still here.
So. orange juice and salt. It's worth a try ,,,,,,,,
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Graham194
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Strange when the heart in AF sends the body an enzyme which causes it to shed salt. This is why you pee a lot when in AF. Good hydration is , however, essential at all times and few people are sufficiently hydrated in today's world. I do not mean tea and coffee I mean plain water and lots of it. 2 litres a day on average over and above any other drinks one might take.
A couple of months ago I began getting more ectopics. I then read that lack of salt can cause ectopics and I realised that in my effort to reduce salt I had for the previous few days I had less than a quarter gram of salt. I increased salt slightly and they stopped. I may be unusual but I don't pee a lot when in AF maybe it depends on how much salt is in your body?. I'm yet to find anything that either lessens or triggers my AF so am going to try your salt and orange juice suggestion (I won't be trying the 70 mile bike ride though!)
Or could it be desisting from the triggers which I suspect from what you say is - 70 mile bike rides without adequate hydration and electrolyte control.
I think for most people orange juice with salt would be unpalatable and quite dangerous if you have high blood pressure. Hydrating with coconut water is more efficient and will help your electrolytes balances - and there are ready made drinks available which are specifically designed for this purpose.
PS - I have increased my salt intake and I think it has improved my BP so I feel better for it but I use a mineral salt added at cooking which I have found quite adequate and I have very low BP.
The trouble is most people have far to much salt intake and it doesn't help in a lot of conditions. Salt is also an emetic so may produce vomiting which would further dehydrate so be very cautious. I feel dehydration is the biggest enemy here. If you must exercise like that then use a specific isotonic drink to replace electrolytes. There are plenty of them on the market.
A year or so ago someone else wrote on here about how adding salt to some water had helped stop his AF. He used Himalayan salt, which I believe is a more natural and additive free form of salt that also has some claimed benefits. Google it if you like.
A couple of years ago I tried using sea salt when I got AF. There was some sign that it was benificial but it was not totally conclusive. I thought it might be related to potassium content. My GP mate said that if there was anything in it then some drug company would be marketing it and making money out of it! I am also a cyclist and definitely think there is something there regarding salt control. Hydration is important but so is salt balance as you sweat alot.I also found that very hard cycles were a possible trigger so have backed off the hard hilly stuff but still enjoy a steady 70 miler on the flat but using a heart rate monitor to avoid overdoing it.
Unless I've misunderstood what you meant, I think if drug companies knew salt cheaply available over the counter could cure afib they'd be keeping it very quiet!
Looking back on my history of AF it actually started just after I got marrried (yes, I was a free spirit till I was into my middle age!). My wife never cooked with salt neither did we both add much salt to our cooked food (me in fact not at all). So the fact I've started the the orange and salt regime and the AF stayed away for 6 months it could quite possibly be the salt imbalance thing. (Fingers crossed!).
I do hydrate as much as possible when long distance cycling and take a good quality recovery drink afterwards. I plan to add a touch of salt to my drink bottles for the ride as well as to take on at least 2 or 3 litres of water after the ride. I have a charity ride for the Kent Air Ambulance coming up which is a distance of 73 miles so I've got to keep the miles up.
Just another note. My heart consultant seems to have abandoned me since the date of the cancelled ablation. I did have an echocariogram of my heart which my GP sent me for which showed my ejection fraction up at 54% and a very slightly leaky valve. When the consultant told me I had heart failure the ejection fraction was down at just over 50%. I must chase him up about this.
I must admit that I was feeling really happy about the AF staying away for all those months and when it hit again for those 12 hours on Saturday it reminded me how unstable, unhealthy and miserable it can make you feel. Today being Wednesday I feel I've just about physically recovered from it.
It is always worth trying natural things to try and ease this wretched AF. I seem to have been in it for two days and nights now and still waiting to hear when I will have my ablation. How much orange juice to salt do you take?
I waited 11 months for my ablation which as I said didn't happen in the end.
I usually just have a half tumbler sized glass of fresh orange and about a quarter teaspoon of salt in he morning. I did read that it doesn't matter what type of salt you use as it's the sodium in the salt that is the most important thing. I did find that this doesn't help much when you're actually in AF though - it's more preventative. Best of luck.
interesting reading about the salt thing. I have suffered an erratic wobbly heart beat for years (24). I don't cycle, but I did have an allotment and went there for hours at a time, in the heat of summer. I sweated gallons; mainly from my head, face and neck area; it dripped off my nose and chin, and out of my hair. I weighed myself one time, before going to the allotment, and on return: I had lost 4 lbs in 'weight'. I decided to drink more water. the wobbly heart got so bad I took to my bed exhausted. Lying there with time to think, I decided to see if I was short of salt. I mixed up some sugar and salt in water - not orange juice - and thought it would taste absolutely vile. Actually it was quite nice, and it did the trick - or seemed to. For some time I increased the amount of salt I ate, and the 'wobbly' went away. I can't tell you what a relief it was, but of course it came back and I was unable to keep on top of it.
proper diagnosis followed, and you know the rest..... ECG...Bisoprolol ... warfarin ...lose weight.
AS I mentioned in my original post - at the same time as I started the salt and orange juice regime I also stopped drinking tea and coffee (this was after previously drinking defaf hot drinks).
After really missing having a hot drink mid morning afternoon etc I decided to buy quite an expensive completely stainless steel kettle thinking that it could have been the chemicals within the plastic kettle that kicked off my afib (us afibbers are desperatte people!!).
After just a couple of hot drinks (both decaf in the new expensive kettle), but not immediatley, I had the 12 hour bout of AF that I have previously mentioned, then a shorter bout of three hours (both very intense and scary).
It is now a good two weeks since that last 3 hour bout after which I stopped taking any hot drinks whatsoever and yes, fingers crossed - NO AF!!
I do realise that we are all different but I really do feel that this is worth trying as I was never sure what was doing the most good for my AF - orange juice and salt and NO hot drinks and it seems very much like my trigger is HOT DRINKS. (I'm still on the orange and salt as my daily intake of salt otherwise is low).
Boring I know but I'd be a lot more bored if it was beer and wine that was my trigger.......!!
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