Permanent AF

I have been in permanent AF since last July. My GP once stated that permanent AF is easier to manage/experience than intermitant varieties but I can't seem to find much literature on this. Any help on this would be much appreciated (I'm on the usual cocktail of bisoprolol, ramipril, rivaroxaban and glyceryl trinitrate ).

[Beancounter Volunteer]

Hi AJFitz

Well I am not medically trained, but I am in long term persistent AF and I would say he's right and he's wrong.

He's right in that our bodies do get used to persistent AF, and most people can find a drug cocktail which eventually assists them to lower their heart rate and live a pretty normal life. For that reason it can be easier than someone who suffers from intermittent (Paroxysmal) AF in that they never know when they will get an attack.

However persistent AF can be much harder to treat, ablations have a lower rate of success and of course AF can get worse with side problems such as enlarged left atria etc.

By the way, why are you on trinitrate? another and different heart problem? because not usually used for AF

Be well

Ian

[Hidden in reply to Beancounter]

Thanks, Ian. I was initially ambulanced to A+E and spent 24 hours in hospital having various tests. I was under a consultant who was very nice and very accessible over the next month or so. Only then did I come to realise he was not a cardiac consult but a guy whose job was to free up beds by ensuring people did not get admitted. I had a number of episodes, some involving chest pain, and finally managed to see the head of the Cardiac Department - along the way a junior doctor in A + E gave me the TNT and no-one has taken it off me including the Cardiac consult even though he said my pain did not seem to him to be angina!

[Upsky in reply to Beancounter]

I have the spray to, I get angina pains when I do any form of exertion, it's a side effect of the bisoprolol and not angina.

[Hidden in reply to Upsky]

I started, and continued with, intermittent chest pains two months before being given bisoprolol - it sometimes appears that we all have as many different experiences as we do experiences in common.

[BobD Volunteer]

I think the point is that people who have paroxysmal AF when it comes and goes are very aware for those changes and find them debilitating. Once the condition stabilises the body is less aware and becomes used to it so the stress and anxiety side is largely lost.

Since any treatment for AF is only about improving quality of life it does make this easier. I suspect this is what he means. Many people with permanent AF are asymptomatic so provided that stroke prevention is taken care of and rate is reasonably well controlled then that is all required.

[jedimasterlincoln]

Dad is in permanent AF, is permanently warfarinised but has never had any symptoms.

I am in PAF, get "attacks" for want of a better phrase, and they are very debilitating... dizzy short of breath heart leaping up into my throat.... It is beyond gutting when they happen knowing that my dad like many others is fine with his.

In recent months it does appear the PAF has morphed or been masked by a "flutter" or the PAF has been masking the flutter.

Either way not quite sure which is the better option. I still feel like a ticking time bomb when I'm heading out to work for a shift or exerting myself.