Afib Question

[mek76]

Have had afib on and off for 10 years. Sometimes disappears for months. Now I will have a short episode ( 5 seconds) and then feel a thud and a tickling electric shock crawling feeling in my chest (1 second); no pain and all is good again. Anyone else have this?

[Padayn01]

Do you check your heart rate when you are having this episode are you in normal rhythm when it happens? Are you not on medication for your AFIB?

[mek76 in reply to Padayn01]

Thanks. I am on dilitazem . This happens rarely but happened earlier this week after months of no issues. The whole episode last 3-5 seconds. I feel the afib and then the rest and it's over. There is no pain or squeezing or anything like that. I thought it was just part of the afib experience.

[JohnEagel]

Hi Meķ,

hope all in the green at your end.

Just out of curiosity, have you been officially diagnosed with Afib and are you on any anticoagulant? How long do your longer episodes last and do they always self-convert?

Reckon many of us are familiar with the "thud" after an ectopic but as the a good bye from an Afib episode, I have to say I never experienced that.

Let's see what others have to share.

Cheers

J

[mek76 in reply to JohnEagel]

Thanks John..just freaky...enjoy the weekend/

[drigm in reply to mek76]

I do have this same experience. I have had two ablations - the last just over 6 years ago. Prior to this I was in Afib regularly for long periods (6-18 hours). These short episodes happen approximately weekly but do not really bother me - and my cardiologist is not really concerned. It is certainly not something that warrants further ablation. In any case, I believe that these episodes originate from hot spots in the atria rather than the pulmonary veins which makes ablation much more challenging. I am on no medication and feel that these short episodes of 3-10 seconds are just a minor inconvenience. I hope this helps.

[mek76 in reply to drigm]

Thanks so much. It makes me feel a lot better knowing someone else has this. My cardiologist also seems unconcerned with this short episodes and tingling. Stress is my big trigger and my job and life is always stressful lol. Cheers and good luck

[Hidden]

This is probably what is going on:

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After 9 years of trying different foods and logging EVERYTHING I ate, I found sugar (and to a lesser degree, salt – i.e. dehydration) was triggering my Afib. Doctors don't want to hear this - there is no money in telling patients to eat less sugar. Each person has a different sugar threshold - and it changes as you get older, so you need to count every gram of sugar you eat every day (including natural sugars in fruits, etc.). My tolerance level was 190 grams of sugar per day 8 years ago, 85 grams a year and a half ago, and 60 grams today, so AFIB episodes are more frequent and last longer. If you keep your intake of sugar below your threshold level your AFIB will not happen again (easier said than done of course). It's not the food - it's the sugar (or salt - see below) IN the food that's causing your problems. Try it and you will see - should only take you 1 or 2 months of trial-and-error to find your threshold level. And for the record - ALL sugars are treated the same (honey, refined, agave, natural sugars in fruits, etc.). I successfully triggered AFIB by eating a bunch of plums and peaches one day just to test it out. In addition, I have noticed that moderate exercise (7-mile bike ride or 5-mile hike in the park) often puts my Afib heart back in to normal rhythm a couple hours later. Don’t know why – perhaps you burn off the excess sugars in your blood/muscles or sweat out excess salt??

Also, in addition to sugar, if you are dehydrated - this will trigger AFIB as well. It seems (but I have no proof of this) that a little uptick of salt in your blood is being treated the same as an uptick of sugar - both cause AFIB episodes. (I’m not a doctor – it may be the sugar in your muscles/organs and not in your blood, don’t know). In any case you have to keep hydrated, and not eat too much salt. The root problem is that our bodies are not processing sugar/salt properly and no doctor knows why, but the AFIB seems to be a symptom of this and not the primary problem, but medicine is not advanced enough to know the core reason that causes AFIB at this time. You can have a healthy heart and still have Afib – something inside us is triggering it when we eat too much sugar or get (even a little) dehydrated. Find out the core reason for this and you will be a millionaire and make the cover of Time Magazine! Good luck! - Rick Hyer

PS – there is a new study out backing up the above observations. You can see it at

cardiab.biomedcentral.com/a...

[KMRobbo]

What you describe sounds like my ectopics rather than afib. Have you spoken to an EP about this?

I get ectopics that last seconds a few big

Heart beats and the fluttery feeling in the chest/throat, some that last minutes which has less concentrated big beats, probably more in total but spread out, and those that last hours not much frequency of big beats but lots of irritating flutter feeling. I don't mind the big beats so much as the fluttery feeling. You need to confirm what you have. Ecoptics are probably not dangerous ( not medically trained but my EP is not concerned about mine but he knows I have no other co morbidities) , and afib which can be a stroke risk. There are different type of ectopics too so if you do have these then they also need investigating

[Madscientist16]

I have the same thing except for the tickling feeling. It started after my AF diagnosis and they put me on diltiazem. Not sure if it an AF thing or a side effect from the diltiazem. My heart will race for 2 to 4 seconds and then like an ectopic (which I also get often), there is a pause and a thunk and the heartbeat is back to normal. My ectopics are just the pause and thunk.