Sudden episode of fast a.fib

[jd_fatboy]

Hello all. My Daughter was ill and her breathing was terrible. She sounded like she had a bit of a stridor. I Ran upstairs. My Heart went crazy and didn't settle. Went into fast af. heart rate of 200 bpm and irregular. Got myself to hospital. And was Cardioverted back to sinus rhythm. Given 2.5mg bisoprolol. I'm 37 years old, since taking bisoprolol. I have generally been feeling a bit wishy washy. ( Not quite myself), feel quite tired a lot. I have noticed that at rest and mostly in the evenings I am sat on the sofa and my heart feels normal apart from feeling a pause when my heart beats. Makes me feel horrible and can feel that little flutter in my chest. I also seem to keep getting an ache in my neck, just above my first rib occasionally on both sides. I've had a couple of ecgs and all appears normal on them. I'm going to contact the GP tomorrow as I am only on a waiting list to have a cardiology appointment. I'm not on a thinner and really don't want to risk a stroke if this is a bout of af taking place. It's happening as I type this message to. My wife thinks it's all in my head but its 100% happening. Doesn't just happen at night all the time either. It's really beginning to get me down. Ive never worried about anything but this is seriously affecting my day to day life.

[CDreamer]

Hi and welcome.

Unfortunately many people suffer symptoms with Bisoprolol which is a heart rate control drug and an Adrenaline blocker. Some people find that symptoms do settle after a few weeks but if they don’t, go to your GP as there are other drugs which do the same job which some people tolerate a lot better.

Anticoagulants - if you have been diagnosed with AF then your GP should assess you for stroke risk and the assessing tool most often used is this - which you can do for yourself:-

heartrhythmalliance.org/afa...

If you score 2 or more then you should push for Anticoagulation unless the risk of anticoagulants is more than the benefits which is calculated by using another assessment tool called HASBLED.

Balancing benefit:risk is a judgement call and there are no absolutes but if you are worrying about not being anticoagulated I would talk it over with your GP because there is a case for arguing that everyone with AF may benefit from anticoagulation.

May I also suggest that you take some action to help manage any stress/worry in your life. Many ways of doing this from learning breathing exercises to practice daily through relaxation, meditation, yoga, exercising, walk in nature, sex, CBT therapy and lots of others but essentially finding pleasure in life. When we worry about things we produce hormones which are corrosive in the body which can exacerbate heart arrythmias. When we experience pleasure then we produce endorphins which cancel the harmful hormones - cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline.

Hope that helps

[CDreamer]

PS - many of us use a small monitoring device called a Kardia which enables you take your own ECG to send to your cardiologist. This is very useful as it means you can track the frequency and severity of any AF episodes as often by the time you get to an ECG machine at the hospital or GP practice, the episode has ended. The problem with paroxysmal AF is that it comes and goes so if you are in NSR when you have a ECG there is no evidence for the doctors to work through. Most cardiologists and many GPs now accept Kardia traces which you can email to yourself, so you can keep your own records.

[shirljo]

Hi, I remember feeling like you describe when first on Bisoprolol, indeed very wishy-washy. I then started taking my tablet before bed and it made me feel like my old self -but with AF! I hope things settle down for you soon and you'll get your heart at a regular settled beat; then you can return to 'normal' life