Last week I laughed when someone noted that she was in AF and peeing for England. That just about sums me up. Last night I must have gone into AF in my sleep and as a result I had to visit the bathroom at least 4 times between 1.30 and 7.00. Each time I produced a substantial volume of urine. Normally I would get up once in the night.
To-day my heart is beating normally but I have only urinated twice and it's now 18.30. I have to assume that AF causes dehydration. I am not aware of any water retention prior to an episode.
When I recognise that my heart is fibrillating should I start drinking a lot of water or not to compensate?
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jennydog
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I noticed that before i was diagnosed with svt, awaiting appointment at Barts hospital to see if i have Afib and maybe an ablation. Some nights i was passing a large volume of urine maybe 5 times, also hot sweats, i,ve noticed they are not so bad now i,m on a beta blocker but i feel so breathless and tired on it.
Hidden That's interesting. I had an ablation nearly 3 years ago and since then my episodes of AF have been milder but the weeing is much more noticeable, in fact it's the main pointer that I'm in AF.
Unfortunately I cannot have a 2nd ablation because of fibrosis caused by radiotherapy to my shoulder. Given the chance I wouldn't hesitate to have another.
I have AF(?) some say...and i am on meds. I say, perhaps not.I drink normally ,maybe even more than normally,tea and water, and i pee normally during the day and get up at night perhaps once a week or even less....at 78.There is some research to be done in this subject...a nice Phd for someone?
If fluid out exceeds fluid in then you get dehydrated, Simples as the meerkat says. When counting fluid intake only water works as tea/coffee all cause net fluid loss. My rule of thumb is the white wine test. If your wee looks like dry white wine (mine often is lol) then you are fine but if Lucozade then drink more water. OK easier for us men to see the colour but simple fool proof rule.
When I came out of AF, I always felt as if I was low in salt, which has been an intermittent problem all my life and felt better when I ate something salty.
It makes sense that dehydration is inevitable after weeing like fury to rid the body of salt but, then, when was AF ever sensible?
Lucky for me that ablation working so far so good and yes the nightly "peeing" toilet visits were the first thing I noticed that stopped! i was told by the AF nurse that lots of women (in particular) comment on immediate improvement so I think you are absolutely right, something is going on with the connection between AF and our bladders! One certainly should drink lots of water to flush system through and get hydrated first thing in the morning... Warm water though, not icy cold as my ❤️ Still does not really like very cold things going into me..... Anyone know why? Lucky no need for a cooling ice lolly yet as pretty chilly here in Brighton still!
Cold things shock the Vagus Nerve which triggers AF. My last AF episode some time ago started after I downed just a half bottle of ice cold Ginger beer.
Hi everyone this is my first post, but had to add my experience to this post. I have had three "serious" events of AF over the past three years, non lasting more than 12 hours. I am on bisoprolol, which I hate, Losartin and "pill in pocket Flecainide". However what has struck such accord for me is with every event of AF I was peeing for the world! Sometimes as often as every 15 mins and like Niagra Falls. Paramedics said it was caused, and not unusual, by the hearts erratic pumping and the effect it has on the kidneys. Seemed plausible at the time. Hope it helps others who suffer the same.
This is beginning to answer a lot of questions for me. When I got really fed-up of my wonky heart-beats and the exhaustion that went with it, I determined to try and do something about it; I knew that I sweated a vast amount, especially in summer at my allotment (I could lose about a pound an hour in weight; sometimes being up there for four hours at a time.) so I wondered if I was salt-depleted: I made up a salt and sugar rehydration drink and thought it would taste awful; actually it was quite nice, AND more importantly it seemed to stop the wobbly heart beats. I was ecstatic. I still don't fully understand the mechanism for this, can anyone explain? after that I made sure I salted my food quite heavily, and it seemed to cure it for a while.
As to WEEING, well five times a night is not unusual, but regularly once or twice. when my Afib was really bad recently I found that even in the daytime the urge to go was so strong that I had to be careful to heed the warnings early on. Despite that I still managed to wet myself (at home) thoroughly on about three or four occasions which- as you can imagine - is horrendous, and I was worried about it happening in public. This was all happening around the time of my diagnosis, so there have been so many changes recently in medication, so I am a bit all over the place, but the excess weeing has abated somewhat.
Talking about horrendous, I wet myself when I was at school!
I was born with TOF(tetralogy of fallot) a type of CHD, and maybe in AFIB many times without knowing it and only truly diagnosed when I was 22years old.
Now aged 46 years old (and AFIB free for 3 years) I have made the connection between AFIB and Frequent Urinating.
But talking about weeing on this forum is very INFORMATIVE!
I woke up yesterday morning with either a stomach bug or food poisoning so sis not go to work. My bladder is normally quite weak so getting up at approx 4am island another couple of times before getting up at 6am for work is not unusual. Yesterday morning was different, I didn't have to get up and slept soundly (another unusual symptom that normally precedes an AF event).
At lunch time, just as I the bowel problem stopped, my heart went into AF. From then on I must have visited the loo to pee about 8 times. Lots of urine each time. I had weighed myself in the morning and weighed mysel again mid afternoon and I had lost 7 pounds.
As I understand it, peeing more is definitely one of my AF symptoms and when I mentioned it to my EP he confirmed this is a symptom and is something to do with your kidneys. When your heart goes into AF, the 'fight / flight' reaction that your heart goes into encourages your kidneys to work harder, thus ridding the body of more fluid. I have heard that if you have a severe shock e.g. Car accident, people quite often pee themselves.
Loads of things can cause you to urinate more, including cold weather. So much so that the amount of night urination has become a measure of how warm I really am! It is also a measure of how stressed I am.
The probable response to urination should be to stay hydrated. I live for months at a time where if the temperature *drops* to 28C it feels cool, and we turn *off* the air conditioner. I routinely walk in 35C full sun for 30 minutes or more. Once you get used to it, if there is a breeze, it can be quite pleasant.
Drinking is not easy, it becomes a chore. The local water has a distinctive flavour that few get used to. So, I have various flavours: 10 percent coka cola, or 10% schweppes tastes good (don't tell these companies that their formulations diluted taste good!) I was introduced to iced tea, and that gives loads of flavours of herbal tea. Best of all used to be Barley Water, or the old Friar Tuck Ginger Wine (non-alcoholic) drink, diluted of course. Shame it is no longer on the market.
The objective is to drink a little and often, in such a way that you do not feel thirsty. A dry throat or other symptoms mean you are already a little late.
Interesting thought, I've never really considered it. Since the AF stuff came along years ago I've had a "hydration app" on my phone which prompts me every 2 hours to have a drink of something, which it's easy to forget when at work on a 12 hour day as well as just sitting idly watching TV when I could be sipping water or cordial.
I can't say I've noticed how much I pee, but like a good nurse I generally notice the colour! I've never (yet) needed a pee in the night much before 8am.
I heard that dehydration is a trigger for AF, so I am now drinking a lot of water, about three times what I did in the past. I also make 3-4 trips at night and about every hour during the day. I chalked it up to all the water. However, I did not know until these posts that AF actually causes this reaction. I am on Flecanide 200mg a day and do not have many episodes of full blown AF but do have a lot of flutter.
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