Confused

[Shoefairy]

I have large and severely large upper chambers of my heart I also have valve regurgitation in three of my valves and now AF This March I got covid and straight after was told I was in AF which seems to show up on my ECG watch and BP machine every day I did hear AF can start through a virus and so settled for that reason(covid)Now I hear valve problems and large chambers can bring it on All I want is to get to see a cardiologist and that’s asking to much at the moment Sorry can’t help you answer the question what starts AF off but when I get an appointment I will be asking

[Autumn_Leaves]

AF is a consequence of valve regurgitation, particularly the mitral valve, which causes backflow into the left atrium which accommodates this by becoming enlarged. There is usually some remodelling of the atrium that takes place and this predisposes the heart going into AF. If you didn’t have AF before Covid, you were heading that way and it would have happened eventually.

Viral illnesses and the inflammatory immune response will increase anyone’s heart rate - which is a totally normal response- and this may be what pushed your heart into AF. If it wasn’t Covid it would’ve been something else, maybe flu, maybe stress, or it would’ve just happened seemingly out of the blue. In reality, it’s not out of the blue, it’s a process that has gradually progressed over the years. Your valve problems meant you were a high risk of AF.

Watches and other home devices throw up “possible AF” if they detect too many ectopics because they’re not that sophisticated. You need a cardiology or EP to look at the tracings. You can’t self-diagnose with a watch or a BP monitor. At the very minimum you should email a copy to your GP or cardiologist. It helps to learn how to spot the difference between ectopics and AF on your own devices rather than rely on the algorithm to tell you. I have AF and I have a high ectopic burden. For me, the ectopics were an increasing problem before AF happened. I had early signs of mitral valve problems on my first echocardiogram in 2014 but that was 7 years before my first AF episode.