Had atrial flutter for 48 hours in 2015, after successful cardioversion it took me about a month before I felt well again, I mean to have a totally normal life: running, working etc. This was both on and off flecainide. I eventually went back on it a few months later and stayed on it until my most recent bout of afl/af.
This time the afib was less severe but lasted five weeks during which time the cardiologists tried to control it with drugs, which lowered it to about 90-100 bpm (my usual resting heart rate is 52 bpm). It kept spiking up to 150+ when I moved about and after two hospital admissions they gave up with the drugs and I was an emergency tOE and then cardioversion. I was discharged on amiadarone since the betablockers had made me feel so awful. I had side effects to this and so changed to flecainide (50 x two/day) and bisoprolol 1.25. However after 3.5 weeks I still feel exhausted. They took me off flecainide which made palpitations start again so I am now on flecainide (1x50 day) and 1.25 bisoprolol. I have some days where I can be nearly normal and other days when i am wiped out and cannot do anything.
Added to this I have underactive thyroid and HHT, a bleeding disorder. Since I am on apaxiban for a month I have also lost 1.5 pi ts of blood in three weeks due to nosebleeds.
Getting to the point though - it seems to me, that everyone i read about, that has a cardioversion, feels better instantly. Both times I was told I'd be running within a week by the cv nurses. So is it just me or do other people feel like this after a cv? I'm a fit, slim, generally healthy person (or I was!) and long to get my life back and to go back to work. Is there light at the end of the tunnel? I blamed the drugs last time, but it made no difference when I came off of them so is it just pure exhaustion because my poor heart was better double time or more for 38 straight days? Thank you
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Jajarunner
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Would the under active thyroid not have some impact on your energy levels or is that now controlled? And if you have bleeds what about anaemia? I’ve recently been anaemic and found I even less energy than normal and it’s never great at best of times.
Having said that, everyone will react very differently.
Adjusting to life with chronic conditions can be so difficult and sometimes we need to just listen to our bodies as it is often more intuitively intelligent than our minds.
My heart had been out of rhythm for 2 months and I had a cardioversion 2 weeks ago (one of many over the years), but I'm still getting tired and a little breathless if I try to do too much. Some days I feel better than others. I think our heart muscles need to gather strength beating in their correct rhythm before we will feel totally better.
Having a good nights sleep also helps with energy levels.
I too have an under active thyroid, mine was caused by taking the drug Amiodarone. Have you had your levels checked recently?
Your dose of Flecainide and Bisoprolol are both very low. I'm taking 150mg Flec per day and 12.5mg Metoprolol.
That's a lot of blood for you to have lost because of your nosebleeds. As CDreamer has suggested, perhaps you need a test for anaemia.
Give it a little more time time and hopefully you'll soon be feeling a lot better.
I had afib for 8 days 130 to 195 resting hr and was very tired for several weeks sfter. Howeve this was also affected by the drugs ( diltiazem)
10 months later I had re entrant atrial flutter for 3 weeks at 140 ( rate controlled by the diltiazem) I was very very tired after that not helped by the fact i was so breathless by the flutter I just lay around for 3 weeks so my muscles atrophied to some extent. It took me 5 or 6 weeks to get over that after he flutter was stopped by an ablation. Again not helped by the diltiazem .
So I am not surprised you are tired after 38 days.
Bisoprolol also made me very tired when I took it. I only lasted a week on that.
I had my first cardioversion a month ago and believed, like you, that I would immediately feel great. I didn't, in fact I felt dreadful, exhausted, nauseated, breathless, chest pain. I have gradually improved over the last few weeks, but I'm still not back to normal. Before my AF started in August I walked about 3 miles daily, can't do that distance yet. I'm doing about 1.5 and increasing gradually. I also get lots of bouts of palpitations, particularly at night. I have a smart watch which shows that my HR randomly shoots uo to the 120s, very briefly, and then returns to the usual 50s. I don't know if my experience is unusual post cardioversion, but for me improvement hasn't been easy or immediate.
I'm not keen on bisoprolol, but I seem to have run out of alternatives- flecainide didn't stop this my second bout of AFlub ( half flutter half fibrillation apparently); verapamil caused my HR in Afib to drop from 95 to 35 in about 30 mins and landed me up in an ambulance being rushed to A&E; amiodarone had too many scary side effects too (legs started to balloon post AF); digoxin wasn't doing anything to my active HR when in AF!
Suddenly started feeling much better in last seven days. So after about a month since cardioversion. Done some gentle rowing and cycling and not as bad as I expected. Still getting tired but I'm doing so much more! Exciting things like Washing the car! IRONING! Making dinner! Drove myself to doctors today!
And doctor says heart rate is fine; took me off apaxiban (yippee as I have a bleeding disorder and lost 850mls to nosebleeds in the last month and am borderline anaemic) so I'm just on 50 mcg flecainide and 1.25 mcg bisoprolol. Not keen on the latter but will stay with them for the time being. Be nice to know when I go to see the electrocardiologist, but compared to some people on this site my treatment has been quite good.
Putting this here not to brag but to spread the good news and hope to encourage others the way you all encouraged me. Thank you very much
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