Suspected a-fib

[Heartluck]

Well I’m confused as I went to a and e with flutters in my chest and was kept in for 12 hours and high heart rate they had me on a drip and took ecg’s every now and then, they sent me home saying we couldn’t find anything, so I made an appointment with my gp to ask what was that all about and was told sometimes these things just happen! Well I was happy with that outcome as I’m an hgv driver, anyway 2 weeks later I get a letter in the post stating i need to inform the dvla of this and I’m going for a heart echo test, so I’ve got that tomorrow. All a bit worrying but unsure what changed from these things just happen to going in for an echo test?

Thanks for reading !

[jeanjeannie50]

That's strange isn't it! If you had a high heart rate then certainly something wasn't quite right. Do you know what was in the drip they had you on? Water, magnesium, or heart rate reducing medication?

Perhaps they said they couldn't find AF (an out of rhythm, unevenly spaced beat) and you had tachycardia or flutter (an even rhythm that was fast).

#A member on here Hidden may be able to advise you on driving regs, Because I've highlighted his name here he will see what I've written and hopefully answer you.

[Heartluck in reply to jeanjeannie50]

Hi thanks I think the drip was because they thought I was dehydrated so I assume just water, they also gave me digoxin to try slow the rate down but to no avail, I was very anxious when all of this was going on I wonder if my anxiety contributed to the heart rate being so high, they just kept saying the heart beats are jumping about a bit and we’re unsure what was causing it, no one ever found out the cause so just a bit alarming how I was all cleared then out of the blue they’ve arranged an echo

[jeanjeannie50 in reply to Heartluck]

Dehydration is certainly a trigger for AF and yes your anxiety could well have made your heart behave worse, it's a known fact that it does.

There are 18,431 members on this site, so you can appreciate that AF is quite common. Especially as we age, though more younger people are presenting with it now. With medication you can live a fairly normal life. The next step for you may be to have an echocardiogram, we are usually given one of these as routine. It checks that the heart is functioning correctly and most of us are told that yes ours are. As we age we can sometimes get slightly leaky heart valves and these are usually considered of no importance.

What were you doing before you had your episode? Had you eaten anything different or been under any stress? Artificial food additives were a sure trigger for my AF.

[Hidden in reply to Heartluck]

Can you ask GP to get copies of your ECG’s from A&E? They should have any detected arrhythmia automatically printed on them.

Pat x

[AndyDuk]

So there is a direct link between afib and anxiety . I think it’s 70%+ of Afib patients suffer with anxiety or depression . For me I always felt anxious and agitated before an attack but this was dealt with via antidepressant medication. Dehydration is defiantly a big trigger , as I know from some of my early attempts at cycling and suffering from Afib . It’s always worth keeping some sports style hydration tablets around with electrolytes and I use them all the time when mountain biking . I’m now off all heart meds after a successful second ablation so hang in there as there maybe light at the end of the dark Afib tunnel ..

[Heartluck]

Well just had my echo this morning the lady that done it said my heart looks healthy and beating perfectly, so my doc thinks I have ‘paroxysmal a-fib’ and wont need medication unless it happens more frequently or gets much worse, she says it was likely alcohol that caused it as I had drank 2 bottles of red wine the night before, I also smoke a vape so don’t think that helped either anyway vapes getting binned after today, thanks for all the replies.