Electro cardio

[costumedancer01]

I had my first electro cardio on Wednesday and came home on cloud nine. Had arestful day yesterday and woke up this morning feeling great But this evening after bragging that I hadn’t felt so good in ages my heart suddenly started thumping. Does this mean it hasn’t worked - I feel so deflated and disappointed. Not sure if it’s just the ectopic beats I was warned about can anyone enlighten me please. Also I gather there is a machine I can get (other than a blood pressure monitor) that will tell me if I am in af So any information on that would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading

[BobD Volunteer]

Cardioversion is never a cure for AF but can sign post treatment for the future. If a person feels better after being put back into NSR then a possible ablation may be a good step forward in the future. Some people are lucky enough to stay in NSR for some long time whilst others may only last a few minutes or hours.

The device you are thinking of is Kardia which you can search top right for other peoples views.

[etheral]

There are many drugs available to help keep you in NSR. Tikosyn has worked well for me for over a year after initial cardioversion only lasted a week. It is available in US but not Europe. Other drugs such as amioderone work but have dangerous side effects. Consult your cardiologist or preferably an Electrophysiologist.

[CDreamer]

store.alivecor.com/products...

Link to the Kardia website. They were originally tested by the AFA and I have had one since 2013 and certainly found it very useful - it is particularly useful to capture things like you are talking about - a series of a few minutes of thumps which come and go. You record and then you can send an email directly from the app with a PDF attachment to yourself for record keeping or to your doctor - if they offer that facility. There are some people which find it soothing to have this infomration and understand it whilst others find it worrying and that they can be become obsessive about every tiny lump and bump so just consider with caution if it would helpful or a stress for you.

Without seeing the ECG no-one is going to be able to tell you what it is.

[Dodie117]

The kardia is very useful for AF. When you feel odd bumps you can to a quick ecg. It will give one of 3 options: Normal, Possible AF (usually means you are in AF) or Unclassified.

[Rebma in reply to Dodie117]

What does unclassified mean on the kardia? Thank you

[Dodie117 in reply to Rebma]

I’m no expert but there are many others types of arrhythmias that kardia is not designed to report on. You then need an expert or someone knowledgeable about reading ECGs. You can either ask your EP or maybe GP or you can pay £5 to kardia for an interpretation. It can be just ectopics.

Others on here may better able to answer this question.

[Mugster]

We're you in persistent AF or paroxysmal?

My Cardioversion put me in NSF for two days but I knew immediatly when I reverted to persistent AF

I don't own a Kardia but just taking my pulse manually or using an app on a smartphone showed the irregularities.

You should be able to call your Arrythmia nurse and arrange an immediate ECG and discuss the next steps

[RoyM]

My Cardioversion lasted 11hrs then went back into persistant AF ...I can live with that. Although, I would prefer to be in NSR given the choice.

[Sean_C]

Hi there, after more than a year in persistent AF I finally went in for a successful cardioversion in September 2017. For a few days it felt weird but then I felt like the 6 million dollar man. The reason was clear, when in AF my ejection fraction was 36-37% (they did an echo) , after the CV and back in NSR it was 57% (MRI this time). I went back into AF in February 2018. My own fault really... I did a hard run when a little under the weather and suddenly felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck. I knew immediately what had happened of course.

But here is the thing, even in NSR I still got, and still do get some arrythmia, mainly a temporary pause in the heart beat and then a few hard thumps. I immediately start slow breathing exercises.. even though they're damn hard to do because my stress response kicks in (I really don't want to go back into AF) and the adrenaline spikes my heart rate..

I had another successfull CV (I don't want an ablation, yet) in April this year and have felt great again, since then.

I have cut way down on my alcohol intake, I take 600mg of Magnesium daily (after watching a YouTube video by YorkCardiologist Dr. Gupta) but still get regular bouts of arrythimia with the pauses and thumping, but the breathing and relaxing helps sort it out quite quickly.

Stay positive and don't stress (easier to say than to do, In know) about it... stress makes it worse...

All the best!

[costumedancer01 in reply to Sean_C]

Thank you Sean for taking the time - that's a very reassuring reply, Today I feel much better - so hopefully this will continue.

Best wishes