Ever since my first knee replacement was postponed due to the last minute discovery of my PAF most of the decisions have been left to me. The current situation 3 years down the line is that I seem to have an unusual form. It's like a timeclock . I get it every 4-6 days and it lasts almost exactly 48 hours. I always know its onset although the effects are so mild it would be easy to miss. Faster uneven heart rate (only from 54 resting up to 90) then soon returning to what feels like a feeble uneven slow beat, in groups of 1's 2's, and 3's with gaps. Can only notice by taking my pulse and am slightly breathless, possibly light headed if I bend down. But I can walk 5 miles with it. Because the specialists have been unconcerned I'm frankly not bothered. I take 5mg Apixaban 2x day and 2x40mg Sotalol. Neither have any side effects and it is not obvious that the Sotalol does much.
My six monthly check ups give me the opportunity to see different EPs with differing views but largely say that the stroke is the risk and the heart is fine (following fairly extensive initial tests.) The latest view was Flecanide wouldn't do a lot and that I was a good candidate for an ablation if the AF bothered me, but whilst the risks were very low, they were slightly higher than doing nothing. There is no signs of damage to my heart. SO, as it doesn't affect my life style to any degree I have decided to do nothing, for now at least.
Are they (and me) right and is there anyone out there who gets this frequent but mild and lengthy type of irregular heart beat? Why is it AF and not arrhythmia (I don't understand the difference in this scenario)?
Dave
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dave1950
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I was the same as you Dave. Had choice to have cardioversion decided to go ahead 1st September and still in nsr feel a lot better and taking bisoprolol and riveroxaban .Now the cardiologist says I'm good for ablation but I'm undecided .
If you are getting decent quality of life and are anticoagulated ,and getting regular check ups,plus general heart health is good,I would carry on as you are.
I too get non- fast AFib,which doesn't interfere with life very much. I do take 100 mg flecanide if it doesn't die down after 10-15 minutes.
From my AFib experience,I have currently improved vastly following extensive lifestyle changes to the point where planned ablation has been cancelled.( Diagnosed 2013!)
So the conundrum of ' do I ablate now while it's still PAFib or risk waiting until it's less likely to be successful ' has currently been answered.
Things can change rapidly inb this Game of Thumps so I am not complacent.
With the regularity of your Visitor from Funky Gibbon Land,can you see a pattern if behaviour ,food,stress leading up to it? Sleep patterns/ quality as well ?
Good luck xx
I was having mild episodes like you, two days on one day off! Have lost a stone in weight, adjusted thyroid meds, persevered with the Flecainide and can now go a week between episodes.
Thanks for all the comments, helpful as ever. I think mine has such a fixed pattern that the "cause" itself is random. I think real panic like stress is the only factor that might bring it on and thankfully I hope to not get many of those events.e.g after my knee op was cancelled it got very fast AF on the day of the next attempt and a couple of times worried about my kids. I have grown used to it and it has minimal impact other then "here we go again!". Diet, weight, drink ?? I could say all of the above but in truth probably none of them. I'm only a few pounds over weight and I'm six foot, don't drink much these days but think I've had a couple of episodes after a heavier session and my diet is okayish. Or at least balanced between a lot of good and a few vices like a daily dark choc ice!
I think at the moment I will carry on as is which is more or less the medical advice. I just feel lucky really that I have a form that doesn't affect my day to day life.
Dave, try this and you might be able to stop afib from happening: (works for me)
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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 (this is why all doctors agree that afib gets worse as you get older). 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?? I also found that strenuous exercise does no good – perhaps you make yourself dehydrated??
I'm pretty sure that Afib is caused by a gland(s) - like the Pancreas - or an organ that, in our old age, is not working well anymore and excess sugar or dehydration is causing them to send mixed signals to the heart - for example telling the heart to beat fast and slow at the same time - which causes it to skip beats, etc. I can't prove that (and neither can my doctors), but I have a very strong suspicion that that is the root cause of our Afib problems. I am working on this with a Nutritionist and hope to get some definitive proof in a few months.
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 study backing up this data you can view at:
If I understand it correctly the gist of the article is that if you are diabetic or pre diabetic and you have had an irregular heartbeat for more than 5 years you will benefit from a 1600 calorie diet.
This change will slowly get rid of your high sugar levels, bring your weight down, which will enable you to take up regular gentle exercise, which will in turn reduce the irregular heartbeat activity but more research is needed?
Yes, that is the basic study. It's too bad that they didn't study non-diabetic people - like those on this forum. And first determined their sugar threshold, then had them eat over their threshold (and a group under it). I bet their results would have been closer to 95%, and if so, would have caused a world-wide Afib interest! That is what I would like to see happen some day, but I doubt I will live long enough to see it. Oh, well, you have to start some where, hey??
That, my man, is the $64,000 question. Certainly wouldn't be the sugar industry. BUT - there could be lots of money to be made if the gland(s) in our bodies can be identified that's causing Afib, and then a pill developed (or surgery developed) to fix the gland. So, perhaps the Pharmaceutical Industry, or a smaller Pharmaceutical Company.
I'm pretty convinced it's a gland or organ in the body that is sending mixed signals to the heart which causes Afib (and probably other heart arrhythmias as well). I do know that some glands tell the heart to beat fast or slow, other glands tell the heart to beat hard, soft, etc. If a gland gets out of wack then the heart might receive messages to beat both fast and slow at the same time. This is all conjecture of course, but I DO know that, when my heart is beating normally, I can make it go into Afib any time I want by eating enough foods that contain enough sugars to exceed my threshold. And I can keep it Afibbing for days on end by continuing to eat near or over my sugar threshold. And when I cut back, the Afibbing stops (takes a day or two), and stays stopped until I go over my limit again. Wish I could get some researchers to do a study on it.
I don't know that it's sugar for everyone - might be some other food for someone else's gland to work incorrectly, but diet surely comes into play because the heart does not use sugar to contract. And I have proved it get's worse as you get older, which every doctor says happens (i.e. my sugar tolerance decreases as I get older) and Afib happens more often and lasts longer. For you, perhaps your tolerance is so low that you cannot go below it, thus staying in Afib all the time. If that is the case for you, try going to a Nutrition Response Tester and see if one of your glands is needing something to work correctly. I have been doing that for the last 6 months, and correcting my diet has raised my sugar tolerance level from 50 grams a day to 75. If I can get it raised to 100 grams a day I should be able to stop my Afib permanently by watching my diet, and I will post that on this forum for others to try. My Nutritionist is getting it to move in the right direction, - hopefully she can get it over 100. (She is always seeing problems with my pancreas and is concentrating on that organ mostly). If you or anyone else would like to know if we are successful in raising sugar tolerance to 100, send me your email and I'll let you all know it works, plus I will post it on this forum (plus will tell all my doctors about it but I'm sure they will not be interested). Hopefully at that point we can find some Researcher to do some research on the root cause of Afib and cure it. My email is rickhyer@outlook.com Thanks - have a nice Fall Season.
Thank you for your input. It may well be a factor I don't know. I have a sweet tooth and in fact would probably say on balance at my age I would prefer the enjoyment of eating a lot of fruit and the good that does me with the added small treats like a choc ice, 1/2 teaspoon sugar on my breakfast cereal, biscuit with a cup of tea etc. to monitoring it. This is based on the fact that the Afib has little impact on the quality of my life but the reduction in sugar would! Also at my age (70) with two artificial knees "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." would represent strenuous exercise to me. (Well it's not possible for me to ride a bike anyway although I can and do the walking and generally a fair bit of exercise. I have thought on a few occasions that exercise has corrected it but it may have been about to anyway.
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