Just pondering this thought…. my own experience with PAF over the last 6 months suggests that my biggest trigger is TIME.
I go into AF every week. It’s normally exercise, stress or alcohol that tips me over the edge, but only after a period of 5-7 days after my last episode.
Similarly, I can selfcardiovert with exercise, but only after I have been in AF for 24 hours or more.
Seems like there is something about my AF that requires a build up / break down of something brought about by the passage of time.
Does this make sense to anyone?
In other news, I have my first ablation in 6 days. Feeling a strange mix of terror and hope.
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Mejulie69
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It makes sense to me, Mejulie - especially the regular onsets. I don’t have an explanation, only a theory.
Food would be my first thought - something quite innocuous which you eat or drink regularly but which has something your heart/vagus nerve doesn’t like. (In my case it has turned out to be a ginger cheese.) I cannot explain the break down in your case as I ate the offending cheese only occasionally.
Do you visit a particular gym, drink their water or whatever around the time before each episode?
Hopefully your ablation will nail the misery for you at last. Best wishes for that date.
No, there is no common cause of my AF. Last week it was a glass of wine too many. The week before I pushed my exercise too far. The week before, it was a big meal! It just seems like my heart is ready for an episode after a week of being in rhythm, then it uses any excuse to go into AF!
Weird isn’t it? There is a downside to this too. My ectopics came every afternoon at 4pm for a couple of weeks and I found myself tensing up each day waiting for them, which of course, was sure to trigger them. On the day they didn’t start, I felt I had won a battle!!
Hi Mejulie69 until I started taking medication and made life changes I began getting bad attacks of P-AF every other Friday. I put it down to coincidence because nothing in my life changed on Fridays not my meals or activities, nothing I could discern (I am retired and most days are pretty similar) .
Also I tried not to dwell on it in case the anticipation of an episode made me anxious and contributed to the event happening.
Hi Baraba, this is very interesting. I have never heard of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and if it is, as you say, the cause of all of our AF, then this is big news.
Can you give us a link to support what you are saying?
Hi Baraba, over the last 6 months I have read a lot, spoke to many suffers (particularly in the sports world), and taken advice from my cardiologist and EP. The advice from every single person (aside from a few on this forum) was “go for ablation, it’s the best chance you have of being able to do sport again”. In the last 6 months I have toned down the exercise to as massive extent and my PAF has got no better or worse. I accept that ablation may not be successful, but I also trust my EP who says that I have 75% chance of success with 1 or more ablations. I am happy with the odds. I wish I didn’t have to do it, but it’s one bullet I am willing to bite.
Do you mean 75% chance of returning to endurance exercise without further AF? That seems optimistic in the long term, unless you intend to be a serial ablatee.
I guess a lot will depend on the state of your left atrium and the amount of cryo you have this time. Is your EP tailoring his intervention to your stated wish to return to the Pyrenees? A gentler approach might allow you to reconsider your long term plans without incurring so many scars which may cause problems in themselves in the future.
Sport, as you seem to think of it, is the opposite of healthy in physical terms, but huge fun and addictive, as I well know. I gradually weaned myself off the heavy cardio, and it was made easier when I discovered the joys of fatherhood, not least football and cricket in the back garden.
yes. It is a shame you are unable to offer any evidence to support your claim. As such, I think it is entirely appropriate for MeJulie69 to go ahead with the advice they received from actual cardiologists, and to go ahead with the ablation.
Ah yes, sorry about the misleading username, I am actually male. The name "mejulie" comes from a British comedian in the 90's who played a character called Ali G. He referred to his girlfriend as "me julie" and so my friends called me that too. I chose it as a username many years ago. I'm not sure why I chose 69 though.
I have had two ablation and have not had many episodes since(well up until last week) the ablation itself is almost painless, I had sedation .my ablation was 13 years ago.
It is worth undergoing this proceedure as in most cases it helps solve the problem
Mine comes every 6 days almost like clock work. The 6th day, it can be a big meal trigger, or no trigger at all. I've come to accept it but I sure don't understand it!
Good luck with the ablation. Mine, 4 months ago seems to have been successful, so whilst nothing is guaranteed I think you have every reason to be optimistic about the outcome.
I am back running as often and as hard as I was before the ablation, with a similar level of performance - and whilst that's a little reduced from 12 months ago, I'm still optimistic that with more time and training (at my age I'm prepared to accept that a 3 month interruption is bound to have some impact on performance) I'll hardly notice the difference.
When I was experiencing AF, I did have the feeling that it was digestive system related. I'm an irregular consumer of food and alcohol, so after a few days of relative abstinence my episodes seemed to subside, whilst they would become more frequent after my tendency to indulge more on a weekend. Without considering my digestive habits, that did create an impression of periodicity. My EP certainly thought my AF was vagal, which of course is not always the case.
thanks Steve, this is good to hear. I'm hoping that I can return to playing football eventually. It (or any exercise) never set off AF for me but I can't play on anti-coagulants so I've not played since the end of last year. In my head I'm hoping to start playing around 6 months after the ablation, but I'll see how things go and won't be pushing myself too soon.
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until I started taking medication and made life changes I began getting bad attacks of P-AF every other Friday. I put it down to coincidence because nothing in my life changed on Fridays not my meals or activities, nothing I could discern (I am retired and most days are pretty similar) .
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