Dear all
I suffer from neck pain giving me quite severe tinnitus. I saw the gp who prescribed 10 mg Amytriptyline. I questioned him re Af and he said it should be fine. I have not had Af since my ablation 2 years ago.
That was 4 days ago and last night and tonight I have had short bursts of Af!!
Any experience or thoughts much appreciated
Rod
Ps stopped taking it
Hi , My consultant advised against taking it when I had back pain as it can cause af! Later on when I had neck pain I was prescribed gabapentin, which worked quite well.
Hope this helps!
thank you
My GP prescribed this for me - same dose, 10 mg - but TBF, my paroxysmal AF is now highly controlled via meds and diet. Pain is yet another issue, and my GP prescribed this for me for pain control.
Only just started it when I began experiencing random diahorrea - quite distressing bouts of it. It had no impact on my AF.
I discontinued it and phoned my GP and told her I wasn't taking it any more. so now I just put up with pain and feed it Cocodomol 30/500 - prescription grade.
Carneuny, I apologize if I have missed your posts on what meds and esp diet have controlled your AF episodes. But would you be willing to summarize briefly what is working well for you? I was doing great on metoprolol but episodes are increasing lately and all seem digestion related. Many thanks! Diane S
Working flat out at moment but I'll start putting a reply together 4 u when I get home 2nite.
John
Thanks! I have an autoimmune “thing” related to lifetime ulcerative colitis and a slow digestion factor/touch of gastroparesis but no diabetes or other explanation for the latter. My GI dr has been of no help, unfortunately. The rheumatologist just says “Mediterranean diet” but…a bit vague! (I take 25 mg metoprolol with supper, D3 w/ K2, C, B12, ubiquinol, a few others, and use 150 mg of flec in case of AF, which works well.)
Could you ask your doctor iif you could talk to a dietician? That might help.
Hi Diane,
There are two parts here. 1) Amytriptyline and 2) My AF, paroxysmal AF. I was prescribed Amytriptyline to deal with Osteoarthritis pain in both shoulders. It did nothing for me except give me Diahorrea .... and quite extensively so. I simply stopped taking it and told my GP accordingly. This resulted in a cortisone injection in the right shoulder which has enabled me to at least get some measure of sleep at night.
I didn’t rub it in but I was also aware that Amytriptyline should not be prescribed to those with AF. Job done. Pain in left shoulder is dealt with mostly by Cocodomol 30/500 but I will shortly be discussing the option of a cortisone injection into the left shoulder too.
At the time AF mugged me, in Jan 2010 I was already on Simvastatin (40mg) and Ramipril (10mg) for high BP. After my diagnosis of paroxysmal AF my Cardio Consultant put me on 5mg of Bisoprolol to be taken with morning meds. He also put me on Warfarin. Stayed on the other two. Got unexpected side effects from Bisoprolol - random, violent full flow nose bleeds. Went back to GP who then said take it at night. Not a nose bleed ever since.
By September 2011 I knew beyond doubt that my AF was triggered by food, my symptoms were; massive and painful bloating, intestinal gurgling, burping and diahorrea. Not all at the same time but, each and every one at random. The bloating is the one that would trip me into AF.
My GP at the time had bloods done to check for IBS and Coeliac Disease. All clear, no issue there. I then consulted a Nutritionist. Long story short she prescribed me a course of probiotics and told me to go Gluten free, Wheat free and Oats free...... and that was just the start over the years, by keeping a food diary ( cause and effect so to speak ) I widened my range of foods considerably and also embraced selectively (trial and error) FODMAPS DIET.
Briefly, for me my food plan became a world of contradictions, hard cheese yes, soft cheese no. Lettuce no, Rocket yes. Duck no. Certain cuts of Pork - no. Onions - no. Shallots, spring onions yes. Radish yes. Chinese meals in resturants no, certain brands of supermarket packaged chinese meals are OK. most cereals - regardless of type and brand are Ok. Semi skimmed milk ok. Strawberries and cream OK, Raspberries and cream - no. Mcdonalds no - KFC - yes. These days many foods I abandoned in the years from 2011 onwards I have managed to return to, such as dumplings in a stew. But the Duck and cuts of Pork - no way.
Look it took many years to get my gut sorted, mostly a combination of Nutrionist help and advice and experimenting and a lot of patience. These days I suffer some AF events 3 to 5 times a year, usually after food kicking in during the early hours - mostly lasting 2 to 4 hours in duration but some hit me for 15 hours or so which wipes me out. Nothing though that would send me to A & E..
So, hope all this helps Diane.
John
Good morning, John, and thank you so much for taking the time to outline your dietary journey for me. I see how complicated it all has been for you over the years… think I need a proper nutritionist and should look into FODMAP diet; I have not been serious enough about eliminating trouble foods. The gurgling and diarrhea are telling me food is a culprit. And usually when I get an AF episode, there is some degree of indigestion present. I also have a strong inflammatory profile which isn’t helping ( part of the inflammatory bowel disease history…. And all the GI docs want to do is colonoscopies). Thank you again. I wish you continued infrequent AF and good gastric health! Cheers, Diane S
Hi Diane,
I must say once we got to the point of my IBS and Coeliac Disease being all clear my GP wanted to refer me for more tests which I suspected would be the colonoscopy route. So glad I consulted Nutritionist. If you go down the Nutritionist route and you are in UK, go to the BANT website for someone near you.
John
I too was prescibed Amitriptylene for nerve pain in my leg. I only have occassional AF (Paroxysmal) but it brought on AF. In the leaflet info. with the medication it says unsuitable for people with heart rate issues. I was annoyed that this wasn't considered when prescribed.
I told my neurologist I wanted to avoid amitryptylene because it brought on PAF- he dismissed that out of hand. Not sure why medics don’t believe us sometimes.
Though incidentally, when pushed, he said: “So what if it does? Don’t try to avoid it. The best thing you can do with PAF is let it go to permanent AF and live with it, it’s much better that way, just ignore it.” A neurologist overruling my EP!! In any case, my PAF has always been very fast (in my case heartbeat of over 150bpm) which no meds seem to bring down to under 100bpm, so I didn’t find his advice either helpful or reassuring!
I’ve had GPs saying low dose amitriptyline (Eg 10mg) won’t cause arrhythmia. But personally I don’t go near it now. I imagine we’re all affected slightly differently, some can tolerate things that others can’t.
Good luck with finding other pain relief. I sympathise. Jx
Jane
Here’s the thing. If we paf people do nothing but ignore ‘ it will it turn to persistent and if it does is it easier to live with? Will the horrible paf symptoms go away? Does it really become easier to live with?
I would be interested to hear from symptomatic paf people if the symptoms stopped when they became permanent af. If so then why do we try to stop it and take the advice of your neurologist 😊
Rod
hi Rod, sorry I’ve not been able to check on here for the last week, so I’ve only just seen your reply.
It’s a very good question! I think I’ve seen some posters saying they find it easier to manage when they’ve gone into persistent, but it would be very interesting to hear from more people on the subject.. Maybe worth posing the question on a thread of its own and see if you get anything helpful back? X
10 mg did cause some extra beats for me, so I cut it in half to 5 mg and may get some pain control but no more heart issues.
amyltriptitylline drug of choice years a for depression widely used now for pain relief.Like wise Gabapentine was used as anti epileptic now used also for pain relief been around a long time
I was prescribed amitriptyline and already had arrythmia. I then had really bad irregular heartbeats. This was years ago and came off of it.
BrianGuitar
AF for 4 days 
Could anyone tell me if they have had major surgery and also suffer from AF?
