We have discussed this subject numerous times and opposing views have been expressed.
Whilst I know BobD is not a fan of the DM he will be pleased that On first read I cannot find any reference to “blood thinners” an expression describing anticoagulants we do not approve of here.
Here is a link to yet another article on AF from today’s Mail Online.
Pete
G'day Pete,
No comment from me .... just a self assessment really .... on the basis of that article I'm well stuffed ,😎😎😎😎🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺
GDay to you too.
I know the feeling. I gave up alcohol 3 years ago but know that my dodgy heart rhythm will haunt me until the Grim Reaper gets me.
My 85 year old mother in law is very unwell right now and we have had to drive a very long way to help her 3 times since Christmas.
She is a heavy smoker and my heart, which had been behaving itself recently, has been giving me the most awful Ectopics since my last day of passive smoking on Tuesday. Although she smokes in another room the whole flat is heavy with the fumes and my breathlessness becomes intolerable and I have to go outside.
I hope my heart will calm down again soon.
Pete
Pete,
So sorry to read of your other stressful dramas with your mother in law. That's not doing your ticker the slightest bit of good is it ? I recall only too vividly the stress associated with the care of my late mother in law ......... at the time I wondered how we would manage. Mercifully it didn't trigger my AF but did stress my wife out unbelievably, as one would expect.
John
On that basis my wife should have been dead for years and I shouldn't have AF. Just goes to show how different we all are. My view is that if it affects you then don't do it. I guess all the beer drinkers will now be saying it doesn't include them. as it only mentioned wine. lol 😆
I read that article with a clenched jaw - decades of wine drinking have probably triggered my AF. ☹️
Interesting article. To add to comments,my Grandma signed the pledge in the 1930s,and had AF,heart failure,stroke, but died aged 87. My mum very very rarely drank,had AF,heart failure lifelong hypertension and ultimate fatal stroke..died aged 77....
if it triggers you,don't do it,and obviously getting blotto nightly might very well affect your health...quelle surprise!
strange beasts ain't we? !
btw ,has the D M got a copy writer with AF!!lol
Yes I was thinking that about the DM
BTW the images look like images from the Orion 3D Scanner that was usedon my last ablation.
Pete
Amazing stuff!
ps to the above...female side of my family history as above...yet Dad ,heavy drinker since 17 ( ExRoyal Navy) had CVD,by pass,valve replacement,heart attacks,2 strokes,on warfarin 16 years bowel cancer twice,still drank 2-3 times a week in club....died aged 85!
fascinating! Thanks for sharing x
My Grandfather who was machine gunned at Ypres in 1914/18 and suffered lung damage from fumes laying in a shell hole, smoked a pipe and cigars all his life and only gave up aged 84 when he was too out of breath to walk across the room to the Scotch. He died at 94, pretty much like my Dad.
The article you mention may have come from the DM but if you’d bothered to check it out the information comes from the Heart Rhythm Journal published 9/1/19
heartrhythmjournal.com/arti...
This is a follow on from their study in 2016 which involved following 900,000 people over 12 yrs
alfredhealth.org.au/news/al...
Anecdotal evidence is not research based evidence and making light of a potentially life threatening condition is not helpful to anyone. We should all take responsibility for our own health and after being given an informed choice make an informed decision.
In my wife’s case it was definitely alcohol the night before that tipped the balance when she had a type 2 MI brought on by lone episode of AF whilst out on a hard bike ride the morning after. She hasn’t given it up but doesn’t have any the night b4 strenuous exercise and only has a couple of units not the half bottle we used to share.
I beg your pardon - I stand corrected.
Pete
quite right - you'll be telling us we all need to eat more fibre next
Hee hee that was a restrained response to a rather rude comment. Keep calm and breathe!!
I don’t feel so restrained, Bagrat - in fact I have been considering starting a thread on the out of place nature which lack of manners has on this forum. But I decided that would be bad mannered.😄😄
Swings and roundabouts. In the second article you link to the prof points out that moderate alcohol consumption is good for the plumbing of the heart .
Yes correct there have been a number of reports in the past that moderate drinking is good for you.
Truth is that we all get conflicting advice nearly every other month.
Moderate for one person is not moderate for another. We are all different and generalisations are not a good idea.
If alcohol triggers AF and you don't like AF then the best thing to do is not drink.
Pete
Absolutely. My last attack of afib 3 months ago started after dinner on a day where I felt very tired all day. But I also had drunk a full ( but still small) glass of wine rather than the half I usually have with dinner. Funnily if we eat our main meal at lunchtime in a restaurant a full glass of wine there ( or even two) does not trigger the afib. And my worst attacks have come in hospital or having ben there with no alcohol for days on end!
For what it's worth I have had my worst attacks either whilst sleeping, on waking or whilst sitting quietly in a chair resting.
Pete
After I realized there was a link from alcohol to afib, I cut back; meds helped but had been in Afib every time I saw my cardiologist and he recommended ablation. That did the trick! I can drink a glass of wine, have a cocktail after dinner and still be in NSR!
I have often wondered why I have never once been asked about my alcohol intake in all my dealings with Cardiologists and EPs. I don't like the taste and half a glass of wine puts me to sleep so I could usefully brag about being teetotal.
Reply to general thread and the DM article.
I had a geography teacher who hailing from Yorkshire (teaching in Lancashire) had a favourite phrase when exacerbated by the inevitable silly girlish pranks we got up to would say ‘Have a bit of gumption girl!’
Whatever happened to gumption........?
I had a particularly bad af episode in april 2009 after demolishing many cans of fosters. I decided there and then to pack up drinking ,i havnt had a drop since and the af has near enough stopped i still get the odd mis beats but for me giving up drinking was a no brainer
I drink rarely these days and it didnt change whether I had AF or not but now post ablation I dont have AF but even moderate drinking does raise my heart rate by a minimum of 10 bpm according to my fitbit
I stopped drinking alcohol 20 years ago as sadly it would trigger AF almost every time I had a tipple, alcohol is the one thing people with AF try to cling onto but all they are doing is feeding the problem in the long term.
I find the article a bit confusing, given what I believed about the way the electrical impulse triggered the contraction in first the atria then the ventricles. In the Haywire Heart book the authors show many diagrams illustrating how the 'signal' to start the atrial contraction should come from a single node (AV?) and when in AF the signal is being transmitted all around the walls of the chamber, causing the erratic fibrillation. I thought this was the reason why ablations were done, to scar the walls of the chamber and thus stopping the errant signals getting through? In this article they are now saying that the scarring is the problem and the electical impulses SHOULD be able to transmit all over the chamber....
Of course, it is entirely possible that this bear of little brain (on medical issues anyway) has totally misunderstood either or both articles and if so, I'd appreciate your comments.
Have a good Friday folks. (I'm off to the pub later for my 1 weekly pint).
Sean
Glad Im not the only one Sean! I too thought that but was too afraid to ask,as they say! Lol!
Me too. Personally, I simply don't believe the 'evidence' is presented properly by the DM, and they've twisted it to make a good story.
From the study results: "Moderate drinkers had significantly lower mean global bipolar voltages (1.53 ± 0.62 mV vs 1.89 ± 0.45 mV; P = .02), slower CV (33.5 ± 14.4 cm/s vs 41.7 ± 12.1 cm/s; P = .04), and a higher proportion of complex atrial potentials (7.8% ± 4.7% vs 4.5% ± 2.7%; P = .004) compared to nondrinkers. " Drawing a simple conclusion from that is a misuse of science.
I had a very heavy on the alcohol few years while a sister in RAF. Not quite so bad after the 60s even tho married an RAF pilot ( who, unsurprisingly has permanent AF).
Good times though!
Fast jet pilots are as likely to have AF as athletes thanks to fighting G force.
Yes indeed. Various theories about more likely to father girls(!) but we have one of each. His fast jet experience was fairly short ( gnats). 4 g on canberras 4 max I think.
I only threw it out there for information. I still think it is all a black art and clearly new things are being researched and learnt all the time. What I find much more worrying is how many different approaches there are by EPs and hospitals to treat basically the same condition albeit that we are all different with different other medical issues.
Pete
AI will sort it out, able to logically manage all the ifs and ands, allowing medical professionals to focus on the admin.
Oh Yeh. They spent over £1000,000,000 on a new IT system for this very purpose and canned it.
I think I will be pushing up the wood anemones ( opting for a woodland burial) by the time this all happens. 🤪
Thanks Pete 
it's good to have some confirmation I am probably doing the right thing. I gave up on alcohol /wine the moment I was diagnosed with P-AF, not an easy decision but one I thought necessary .
When you live alone and open a bottle of wine it is easy step to think 'I will just have another glass now it is open'. I know I was drinking more than the recommended amount but not really motivated to do anything about it until my body made that decision for me.
I gave up for a number of reason including I didn't wish to add to the cocktail of chemicals I am now taking thanks to the medication, I wanted to lose weight and alcohol adds negative calories , I and am more likely to fall if I drink alcohol and falls can be risky if you take an anticoagulant.
I don't really miss the wine now
Reading this kind of Daily Mail journalese is enough to drive anyone to drink. Ablation is meant to stop too many electrical paths in the heart.. "High Voltage "? What twaddle - and coming from Australian experts in drink . . . . . . . .Just off to the pub.
On my first EP appointment he recommended no alcohol, so I didnt drink any for the last 3 years. On New Years eve I bought a bottle of red wine and had a small glass. Sadly it didnt even taste good and later my stomach was irritated. Guess I will just leave it alone. I also gave up soft drinks but I miss the carbonated taste so every now and then I buy one and they dont taste good any more either. Funny how your taste buds change over time.
My AF started after I'd given up alcohol (lightweight) for over a year!
Nothing like a bit of controversy on our peaceful forum😇
I think we are all different and react in different ways, personally I can handle a couple of glasses of wine, bring a scotch into the equation and that does it. I also always drink a pint of water before bed if I have had a drink, dehydration is the trigger for me I think.
I think at the end of the day you are right and we are so different, I have said this many times on this forum. If we want to mitigate the problems we encounter with AF then we have to listen to our bodies.
If you are OK with a drink that is fine. If it affects you badly, you will know if it does, then avoid it.
It is the same as any other triggers.
I realised that attending rock concerts and Southampton playing at home had a bad effect on my heart. I therefore have decided to avoid both - sadly, as my QOL is bad enough without making it worse.
Doctor Doctor:
Everyone treates me like a pair of curtains:
Doctor
Pull yourself together
Pete
I could cope with not going to see Southampton play but would hate to miss the rock concerts!!!
Thanks,
That article just reinforces that I need to stop all drinking.
I have been trying to find a beer subsitute.
I tried an IPA infused mineral water which tasted pretty good but it was no beer by.
I did like the idea so since then I have been adding a home brewery IPA liquid additive to my fake beer. It is called "Hopcitrales". I use an eye dropper and the fake beers are Erdinger and Becks. If you really feel like you need a beer it is a pretty good subsitute. I have mixed a 1/4 beer with a fake and the Hopcitrales and that is pretty good. It is a developed taste but so is a bitter IPA.
Hope this helps ease some of the pain with my fellow beer lovers.
Bought some alcohol free beer recently from beer hawk on line here in the uk. They do some really good beers that taste pretty good in my opinion. Had one called Jupiter last night and it was nice. The best bit was no hangover 👌
There’s other on line companies like dry drinker. They all offer alcohol free wine as well but I haven’t tried them as the beer is enough for me. Noticed in Waitrose the other day that they do an alcohol free spirit called seedlip but again no idea if any good.
Like most I’ve given up alcohol as I just know it will flip me over to afib so at least this is a good substitute
The are outliers everywhere. I know a woman who had the ablation 15 years ago and is an alcoholic who drinks daily, alot, and never had AF again... I often wondered about myself. I tipple a few a week as i love a 2 oz scotch whisky so I can laugh while watching the antics on the national news. I have cut back from one drink daily as I kinda think alcohol is bad for the heart and toxic in some ways when taken in more then moderation.
Good thread with some restrained and witty replies, on point Pete, 👌, made me smile this morning . When my af started 5/6 years ago it put me in A and E a few times always when I had a bit of a wine session especially in hot weather . I'm sure Hydration was a big part of it, totally not the full bottle that seemed to disappear 🙈, but i gave up totally after even a couple of glasses seemed to start the usual 180-210bpm antics off and it became obvious this was a trigger even though I tried to make excuses it happened too often and became apparent the link was too strong to ignore . Was just thinking a couple of days ago how it would be nice to have a even one glass of decent chardonnay in this nice weather after the successful recent ablation, but the fear of it triggering AF and fast runs is at the forefront of my mind still, and not sure even after a few more months have passed and I stay in sinus that I would jeopardise a chance to be AF free. Looks like just for now il keep being the weirdo that sits with sparkling water checking out the wine list... Drooling 🍷
Hello Ian
It is now about 3 years since my last glass of real ale or a glass of wine.
I have the same misgivings as you in that I sometimes really fancy a nice glass of wine or beer but the fear of potential triggers have make me fell it really isn't worth it.
Pete
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