Tummy issue and arrhythmia

[SpritzerAce]

Hi there. Hope all of you are keeping well and staying safe. Just would like to know if anyone here has ever had any experience of having a tummy issue that leads to AF? Do share if you did. And what was the cause? What did you do? Thanks everyone.

[Finvola]

Before I started Flecainide, any digestive upset would start AF and SVT and the arrhythmias made things much worse with bloating and diarrhoea. I assume the causes were foods which I have learned to avoid in the last seven years - mainly wine, sugars and artificial additives.

I believe it has to do with the vagus nerve connecting brain, heart and digestive system and upsets transmit their discomforts back and forth. Even though I have been AF free for six years, an upset gut still causes ectopics and mild racing of my heart.

My solutions were to change my diet to exclude all the above foods, eat smaller portions and limit anything harder to digest such as red meats. It was a matter of trial and error though and my main source of peace is Flecainide itself.

[SpritzerAce in reply to Finvola]

Thank you for your reply. I believe mine too was triggered by some digestive issues. As it is I have been avoiding dairy products especially fresh milk.

[secondtry in reply to SpritzerAce]

Diet changes can be difficult as cutting out something to help AF may deprive the body of something useful. The long term plan I have followed is to seek sources of quality food and be prepared to pay for it e.g. raw organic milk - increasingly produced these days - is for many much more beneficial and easier to tolerate as are ancient organic grains such as Spelt, grass fed beef and local organic fruit. It has taken me 10 years to find reliable sources of food but it is getting easier as local and organic initiatives become more common.

[Buffafly]

Definitely - IBS and diverticular disease are triggers. Fortunately, besides care over diet, Diltiazem helps greatly with bowel issues as well as what it’s meant for!

[SpritzerAce in reply to Buffafly]

Thank you. Never been on Diltiazem though.

[Hidden]

Hi SpritzerAce,

Totally agree with Finvola and Buffafly.

If you check out my user name, click on it and search my posts you should find quite a bit I have posted on this topic.

Once I identified my AF kicking in as a result of food I'd eaten I consulted a Nutritionist and since then (late 2011) I have been virtually AF free ..... having only one AF event since April 2015 ( which was in February 2018) and nothing since although I have had occasional spells of 140 plus bpm with my heart racing following a long road trip but nothing that resting up didn't fix, although on both occasions it wrecked my weekends away.

I have been gluten free, wheat free and oats free and shedloads of other stuff free too ever since. I might add my digestive symptoms were bloating and diarrhoea, burping and intestinal gurgling. The worst, by far, was bloating, oooh! the pain and that alone would be enough to do it and trip me into AF.

All my medication is exactly the same now as when first prescribed in January 2010.

John

[SpritzerAce in reply to Hidden]

Thanks John. I shall look up your previous posts on this topic.

[PlanetaryKim in reply to Hidden]

Very helpful to know, John. I feel my digestive issues are also Afib triggers. I am working to change my diet. It's a bit of trial and error. But anything I can to to reduce/eliminate gassy post-meal bloating will take pressure off my heart and vagus nerve and hopefully reduce or eliminate my afib episodes! I am currently reading Jack Wolfson's book The Paleo Cardiologist, and also Stephen Sinatra's Metabolic Cardiology. Would welcome any other suggestions. What do you use for bread substitute for toast and the like?

[Hidden in reply to PlanetaryKim]

I have 1 piece of toast and marmalade, very brown toast I might add, once a week. My reward for being good! 🙂Apart from that daily substitute for bread is dull and boring Schar Crispbread ( gluten free/ free from aisle in supermarket).

John

[PlanetaryKim in reply to Hidden]

Thanks John!

[chris45558]

Every episode of SVT started after food. Even after my ablation I still get stomach problems and although no SVT my heart is jumping about.

[Ppiman]

You'll find that you've hit on a rich vein with this idea since so many people feel certain that a whole range of their health problems are related to, or "triggered" by, foods that they've eaten. If you have a look over the posts on the Afib Facebook page, you'll find such a wide range of "triggers" that you'll wonder how some people manage to eat at all.

My own experience is that I can't find any food that affects me in any meaningful way, despite trying over many years. I wish it were otherwise. Last year I had an ablation for persistent atrial flutter which both my GP and I were convinced was a result of my digestive problems (reflux / hiatus hernia / DD / IBS). After the ablation, I had just a single major afib episode that put me back in hospital, but since that, I now only have ectopic beats, sometimes worryingly strong and regular. Again, these feel to me to be directly related to my digestion, but I can't be certain. I say that since when I'm having them I feel discomfort under my left ribs, like a balloon is there.

One thing I was told that helped me and might help you. A cardiologist noticed that when my stomach bloats with air - as everyone's does when they are anxious or have drunk gassy liquids - the top of my stomach pushes the diaphragm muscle that is above it physically into contact with the base of my heart, sometimes amplifying the heartbeat noticeably. Whether this also causes my arrhythmias, he wasn't so sure. I asked abut vagal nerve irritation, and again, he was rather sceptical.

Steve

[Buffafly in reply to Ppiman]

I agree that pressure on the heart causes problems. I put some of my episodes of arrhythmia down to my skeletal structure - I had a severely deformed spine through scoliosis made worse by arthritis and had an operation to stabilise my thoracic spine which is still a bit crooked and I am still 3 inches shorter than I should be so it’s obvious my organs are a bit squashed!

[Ppiman in reply to Buffafly]

Bad luck - I hope you are coping okay. Arthritis is bad news for us when we're on blood thinners as we can't take any of the usual pain relief.

Steve

[PlanetaryKim in reply to Buffafly]

This is very similar to my situation Buffafly. I lost 3 inches of height to vertebral compression fractures. Went from 5'7" to 5'4" in quite a short period of time. I still stand straight. But I am quite aware that my organs are squished together too much in the body cavity due to height loss. I feel that is contributing to my Afib via pressure on heart and on vagus nerve. Hard for lungs to inflate fully. So after-dinner bloat and other such issues digestive issues that also take up space in there seem to be Afib triggers. There's just not enough space!

[planetiowa]

Yes, I've had stomach issues that have caused palpitations and has led to AF. I usually take a tums when it starts acting up or if it's really bad will take a Pepcid. Since many of my episodes have occurred at night in bed, especially after eating a large meal, I started taking a Pepcid in the evening after dinner. Not a scientific study but I have had very few issues since.

[Hidden]

Eating food that does not agree with you can cause either an increase or decrease in heart rate. Eating gassy foods can cause the gut to put pressure on the vagal nerve and can trigger A Fib. Check out the You Tube videos by York Cardiology on the gastro-cardiac connection.

I had to cut out all dairy and foods like beans that cause me gas. That reduced the number of incidents, but did not do away with them. Only ditching the carbs has worked. My doctor said it is because the carbs cause inflammation and that leads to A Fib. He also said blood sugar spikes and rapid drops cause A Fib too.

[PlanetaryKim in reply to Hidden]

Mollybear, in your diet, what do you use for a bread substitute to make avocado toast or sandwiches or things like that? I am having trouble with that. But am trying to move into a low-carb keto/paleo diet.

[Hidden]

We have access to a very low carb, yeast free bread mix available from our nutritionist. I doubt it is shipped out of the US. It is $9.99 per bag plus shipping. He occasionally offers coupons and when he does, my wife buys 12 of the mixes and they will last 6 months or more. We are expecting an order to arrive any day. She makes 2 loaves at a time and freezes one. She also uses the mix to make stuffing for turkey, and flatbread. It is the closest thing we have found to real bread and makes excellent toast. We do not use commercially prepared Gluten Free Bread because it is very high in carbs, and also because my wife is highly allergic to yeast.

If we are out of the bread, we use lettuce leaves if we want a sandwich.

For lunch every single day I have a large salad with chicken, tuna fish or whatever leftover meat we have, topped with Oil and Vinegar. My wife roasts a chicken every week and I slice the breast down to use on my salads. Leftover pork roast also works well.

[PlanetaryKim in reply to Hidden]

Thanks Mollybear! Wish I had access to your nutritionist's bread mix. What is the basis of it? Almond flour and psyllium husks, I wonder? That is what I am seeing for most of the low-carb keto bread recipes I am finding online. I made one last night. It did not totally agree with me. left me feeling heavy hours later.

[Hidden in reply to PlanetaryKim]

I am not sure what is in it. As soon as our new shipment arrives in the next day or so, I will check the ingredients list and let you know. It causes me no digestive upset whatsoever.

I did have a terribly bloated gut the other day after eating a No Sugar Added ice cream made of Coconut Milk from So Delicious. Turns out it has Allulose in it and I know I cannot tolerate that. Never ordering that again!

The only non sugar sweeteners I tolerate are Erythritol, Stevia and Monkfruit.

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

We received our order of bread mix yesterday.

The ingredients are Blanched Almond Flour, Organic Coconut Flour, Organic Psyllium Husk, Dehydraded Sweet Potato, Baking Soda and Sea Salt.

To make it my wife mixes 2 Tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, 1 Cup of Water and 1 cup of egg whites in a bowl and then adds the mix.

Total carb count per slice is 5grams less the 3 grams of fiber, so the net carbs are 2 per slice and it contains 2 grams of protein per slice.