Well, that must be my 3rd or 4th wobbly this year. Came on late afternoon. Suddenly, no warning ..... wham! Even managed to clock it on my Kardia 6. Still feel totally crap 4 hours later.
Why?
Just realised I spent the morning bent over assembling a flat pack garden shed shelf.
Hmmmmm! And what was I doing 12 years ago that I can identify with my first AF diagnosis..... bent over a shredder shredding papers.
Stupid boooy!
John
Hope you feel better soon John.
Oh no! Mind you, you can't spend the rest of your life not bending. At times our AF does it's best to keep us inactive and then our bodies grow weak, we become less mobile and drift into being old and infirm. Keep fighting it John!
Jean
Hope it is NSR now. Others have reported bending over as an issue restricting their gardening etc. I used to notice feeling uncomfortable bending but less so now, don't really know whats changed other than maybe my Vagus Nerve has got less sensitive due to other lifestyle changes.
Thanks secondtry. Better than yesterday must say and as far as I can tell in NSR.
👍
I must say I'd totally forgotten about the bending - and yes you are right it has been reported on here many times over the years.
I don't feel real great and wouldn't be surprised if this damn thing isn't having a battle of wills inside my chest .... trying to kick off AF again, just feels like a tug o war going on in my chest.
John
I'm sorry to ask this but living in Hawaii USA I've no idea what a wobbly is. I'm figuring that it's British vernacular for something, maybe losing your equilibrium? Will you please explain? Suffering from occasional AFib events and traveling for business to the UK from time to time, it feels like I should know about this.
HiloHairy - my apologies ... and yes .... you are correct a bit of a UK vernacular I'm afraid. So, in the context of AF it is not just a British vernacular but an illustrative term to describe what my heart was doing, suddenly, out of the blue yesterday (29 Oct). Heart wobbling/fibrillating/vibrating.
🙂
I was diagnosed with paroxysmal AF almost 12 years ago (Jan 2010). Within the first year I managed to identify certain foods as the trigger. This in turn led to my relating food causing my vagal nerve to malfunction. I consulted a Nutritionist ( maybe a dietician in USA) who advised me on a diet. The vagal nerve is a significant nerve in the central nervous system acting as an information superhighway between brain, heart and digestive system - hence the connexion between heart and food.
Over the years by eating to a different food pattern/products I've managed to bring the AF under control. These days I get 4, 5, or 6 "wobblies" a year, usually as a result of eating the forbidden food. In April 2015 and February 2018 I did have major AF events lasting over 12 hours.
Apart from that I just rely on medication - hypertension and heart rate control mainly, ably supported by Warfarin (Coumadin in USA).
On this occasion this "wobbly" (of the heart) was caused by my bending over assembling some flat pack shelving. Ironically bending over shredding documents, way back in Jan 2010, was the trigger to my starting my walk on the wild side with my AF.
I hope all this rambling on explains things better and helps you understand.
John
~Hi carneuny ~ as a fairly new person on this site please tell me the significance of bending over?I too have noticed this when gardening - do you actually know what is happening - I never was this way prior to reaching my 60th year ~
Any feedback gratefully received & hope you are in fine fettle now~
G'day Megams,
I'll give it a go ! Mind you you'll most likely have to do some research yourself.
We each have a central nervous system and a part of it is the vagal nerve. This is in effect the bodies information superhighway between the brain the heart and the digestive system ..... and many other organs too. Suggest you Google " schematic diagram of the vagal nerve".
So, if you do something that unbeknown to you aggravates/inflames the vagal nerve .... like bending over or eating certain foods .... then a dose of AF can result.
Doesn't happen to everyone but those that are affected in this way certainly know it. I do not have the knowledge to explain why some people are affected via food/bending and the VN and others are not .... I guess, it just is !
For me food is usually the trigger. Bending can do it too but rarely. That said, it was bending that set me off back in the day which led to my original diagnosis, aged 65. In the year that followed food took over as the main trigger and I have consulted a Nutritionist as to a diet. FODMAPS is also worth looking at.
I also regarded myself as having led a healthy life prior to this. Mind you, that said .... it does seem that with some of us genetics can have a role to play. If either side of your family going back as far as you can, have shown a tendency to cardiac/stroke issues then it may well be AF is behind it all, and of course the further back you go the less likely the medical world was able to identify and treat AF. Heavens, that's true today with some GP's.
My paternal grandfather died from a series of strokes back in the early 1960's. My second cousin has AF ( his father was a brother of my grandfather). My daughter had AF in each of her two pregnancies. Nothing since she stopped breeding. Then there is me. So you can see what I'm getting at when I talk of genetics.
Hope this helps you.
Plenty of information on the AFA website to further assist you in your learning curve.
John
~Hi there again JohnAwesome, that is a great place for me to start - I have faulty electrical system connected to my genetic atrial septal defect that my late Mother inherited somewhere along the line & in turn passed to me.
I have a history of gut/intestinal challenges, have been on FODMAP + gluten & dairy free diet for many years - made huge improvement.
As you will see from my profile live with PMR & steroids since 2015.
These areas create challenges too - all manageable however.
I am of English/Danish/Swedish/Scottish/Irish extraction as a 1st generation NZ'er so my ancestry also added to the mix 
Indeed I thank you & will study up on the VN ~
Also, ‘throwing a wobbly’ means having an emotional outburst, which you could say the heart is doing after being upset!
Buff, I think that makes you the AF'er of 2021 - what a great one liner .......... " a wobbly is what the heart is doing after being upset"
In my case and many, many others - after food and/or bending aggravating the VN.
Brill.
😂
John
Hope this morning finds you back in good heart order.
Thank you Meadfoot. Not quite right must say but certainly without the kick in the chest I got yesterday. So, its onward and upward especially as we now have a nice sunny day down here at the pointy end of Cornwall.
😂
John
Same with me - last November bending over dismantling my grandson's Ikea cot. I'm still having issues now. It set of both gastric and AF problems thanks to my HH. I have read that bending can stimulate the vagus nerve, to cause heart rhythm issues (i.e. via the parasympathetic nervous system).
Life can be such fun!
Steve
Yeah Steve, I understand. Its rare for me to cop it with the bending, very rare. Mostly food is the culprit and has been for at least 10/11 years for me. Got it pretty well sussed nowadays, but, there is always the curved ball ! Like bending, which I'd forgotten about. Anyway, I continue to improve and pretty much back to normal now ............ AF and normal in the same sentence, maybe not
😂😂😂
John
Yes, life has changed, I feel great when I don't do much. I do like to push the boundaries though and pay for it. Get better soon.
Hello … love wobbles explanation and have started using it with my GP. I too have a question about this term. When you experience “wobbling” does one side of your body feel like it’s vibrating? I experience a sensation like I am sitting on, say, a tractor so the wobbles don’t always feel like they are in my chest. Sometimes it’s in my lower back, my leg, buttocks or on one extreme occasion just my head. It usually follows overdoing gardening (raking for two hours) in heat/humidity, or from dehydration and constipation when my wobbles are strong/severe. Weaker wobbles appear to kick in after big meals, not chewing food especially meat, some aged cheeses, too may sweet biscuits (hard to stop at one stem ginger) or any chocolate. Just added the extra causes in case any resonate with you but I am MORE interested in you detailing what your wobbles feel like than what you think causes them. Is the sensation an Elvis with a “shaky” leg, for example, or do you feel like me that you’re riding atop a tractor, or walking on moving ground or across a suspension bridge, maybe it’s a shivering sensation etc. I’ve been in the wobbles since yesterday and it feels like my neighbour is running their pool pump so hard that is causing the ground to vibrate so … whether I stand, sit or lie down … I can feel a strong vibration.
Hi AussieHeart,
Well, for a start the sensations you describe I have never ever experienced. Food causes say 98% of my issues and Bending say, 2%.
Bending generates a sensation like a mule is inside my chest cavity and rears up and uses both rear legs and hooves to give me an almighty kick inside the chest cavity.
Food on the other hand can produce many digestive sensations, burping, diahorrea, loud intestinal gurgling and worse of all, painful and intense bloating. It is the bloating that will always trip me into AF more than anything else. Sometimes this is so violent I can almost see my gut inflate - as if I was ( my body) attached to an airline pumping up my car tyres. Food will give me different sensations - not a mule kick but like squadrons of butterflies, in mortal combat, in a dogfight, within my chest cavity ... or ... a bag of earthworms wriggling away inside a plastic bag of soft moist earth in my chest cavity. Perhaps I'd describe it as more a quivering sensation than shivering. Either way, all totally unpleasant and undesirable.
Interesting you mention about cheeses, if I eat hard cheeses like Cheddar or Edam then no sweat. If I eat soft cheeses like Brie - disaster ! I'm off to the bathroom. Similarly with some meats ..... pork with crackling, turkey, to a degree and duck . love duck, guts can't handle it. ( that's just a sample).Yet I can go to a well known fried chicken outlet and pig out on their drumsticks etc with no side effects.
As a former Sydney resident I can well identify with your description .... " .... feels like my neighbour is running their pool pump so hard that is causing the ground to vibrate so … whether I stand, sit or lie down … I can feel a strong vibration". But in all honesty that is not how I'd describe my sensations. Its the mule thing and or the bloating thing .... never the two together though. Quite different cause and effect.
Hope that helps you. TBH, I rather suspect that you are experiencing similar stuff to me, just the feelings/sensations are different, in other words, foods are upsetting the vagal nerve and hence these sensations which you describe differently to me. Our bodies while made up of the basic same component parts, heart, nerves, brain, digestive system they are all essentially different.
You just keep getting better in describing my symptoms. I experience an inflated gut. I’ve only been kicked once, felt more like I was pushed violently. Love the “squadrons of butterflies, in mortal combat, in a dogfight” description. I coin this sensation as “churn” as it isn’t always in the chest cavity. It often feels like it’s coming from my “guts”. So the pool pump I described was that sensation real or “just you” because my neighbours have a new spa and my symptoms often coincide with it running, it seems. My left side appears to be mostly impacted by “tremor” (vibration). My EP says these symptoms are NOT typical of aFIB. Obviously he has no vagal experience. Thank you for bringing the wobbles to life. You’ll never know how comforting it has been to read about it in the face of GPs/EPs who think you’ve gone mad!!
I think the issue is .... depending on the medical discipline these guys have studied it influences their thinking,i.e. the example I gave re Cardiologist and Gasteroenterologist. Mind you that said, I think Cardiologists are beginning, slowly, to accept the influence of “Adrenergic” and “Vagal” Atrial Fibrillation, as in the article you kindly posted.
Thing is so long as forums like this exist it enables a free exchange of information which the patients can use .... and its the patients that are most important.
John
I’m slowly coming good after 5 days of “squadrons of butterflies, in mortal combat, in a dogfight” in my gut. I’d weaned myself off Bisoprolol but had to go back on it. If you watch this video it wasn’t the beta blocker that fixed me but more a stretching of my vagal nerve. My aFIB dx started with the question is it POTs so when my dysautonomia group posted this video it made me sit up and take notice especially in light of your comments. m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs-SH...
Two weeks ago I had some shivers rather like when we used to say: someone has walked over my grave. Daft saying but whereas I used to get one this occasion was a few that evening. Can't remember time in between. I have paroxysmal AF diagnosed September 2019. My triggers are too much caffeine and alcohol.... Oh and stress which I can usually control with yoga and deep breathing. Only had one shiver since.
I guess quiver/ vibration or pulsing best describes my symptoms which my EP says is NOT linked to aFIB! Nor he says are the chills/shivers on standing when these symptoms first come. I think it’s vagal nerve involvement and anxiety is the term used by “Drs Don’t Know”, which sadly there are plenty allowing you to languish in a state of debilitating distress and adding to that supposed “anxiety”. Sorry quite scathing on the poor treatment EPs provide especially if like you and me it’s paroxysmal. We hold little interest for them as we don’t need ablations … yet.
Thanks for your reply. Interesting
Found this interesting too : a-fib.com/faqs-understandin...
Thanks very much for that. It seems to endorse what I said about my AF events ... 98% emerge from food in the early hours of the morning and 2% from an activity, like I was doing on Friday, bending over.
John
Thanks. Will catch up on that.
Hiya AussieHeart,
Over the( almost) 12 years I've been on this forum, and its predecessor hosted by Yahoo, these sort of comments often emerge by AF sufferers. So, in the context of the vagal nerve and the brain, heart, digestive system connection as far as Cardiologists and EP's are concerned the jury is still out on the contribution the vagal nerve makes to AF.
However, talk to a Gastroenterologist and you'll get much more understanding and support. Its a western medicine problem where each component of the body is treated as a stand alone unit rather than a more holistic approach.
For me - I bloody well know what my VN is doing I just don't need anyone to tell me who's who in the zoo !
John
How are you today John, or is it too early to say?
G'day Jean,
Feeling almost on top of the world now, thanks very much for your enquiry. Most importantly for me my BP has now reurned to slightly less than my regular average numbers. No signs of butterflies and/or worms in action in my chest so I can only blame the bending over my flatpack shed shelves. Might leave it for a bit until I can get Mrs CarnEuny to assist. Back to work on the buses on Tuesday, I've been off for 2 and half weeks having had my right eye cataract sorted. " I can see clearly now" 😂
Thanks again, stay safe.
John
Hope you feel better soon. We old fogeys do a lot of silly things even though we know we should take a rest or go and have a walk around and stretch every so often - I am the same.
Hiya Desanthony,
Many thanks, yes almost back on form. Another reminder of the fact that I need to look before I leap, or think more carefully about what I'm doing. 😂
Yep. As I have probably said before I have a bad back and bad neck so know not to spend too much time in one posture - sitting or standing but when you are doing something you tend to think - not much longer now and see it out to the end - whether it's an hour or 3 as things never take the time you imagine and then wonder why you can't straighten up. I sometimes wonder will I ever learn?
Warfarin or a new anticoagulant? Undecided.
New to Afib- tiredness 
Warfarin v New Anti Coags
New here, considering ablution 
