Currently in my local hospital having a second bottle of Digoxin. I had a five hour bout of AF yesterday afternoon which terminated on its own like it normally does. However, 45 minutes later, and unusually, it started again but this turned into a regular fast beat of around 122 bpm. 24 hours have now passed and this didn't or hasn't resolved itself and as its out of character for me, I thought I better get it checked out. ECG at the hospital confirms it is sinus tachycardia. The hospital are keen to get the HR down a bit before they let me home but I'm not convinced this is going to stop.
So the question is please, has this kind of behaviour been experienced by others and how was it resolved or, if not, do you live with it? Thanks.
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I have something similar but ony for 5-15 minutes at a time. I don't own any clever gizmos so only know I can get a few minutes of AF. It resolves. Similarly get what I call inappropriate tachycardia as its usually without increased exercise but regular. It can be 120 -130. Sometimes slows down gently or at others goes from 120 to 60 "in a heart beat" apologiesfor analogy.
After years of on and off AF, but slow HR (50's-60's) in between bouts, this year I suddenly jumped into full time AF and full time tachycardia, ranging widely between 70-140+ BPM.
The EP who has followed me for years recommended that I go ahead and get a pace and ablate procedure, in which the a/v node is ablated and a pacemaker controls the ventricular heart rate, so no tachycardia. But it doesn't "cure" afib because the atria are still doing their own thing, but no longer communicating to the ventricles. But pulse is regular.
I think the pace and ablate is only recommended for folks like me who have failed cardioversions, pills, and one or more ablations. I also have a huge left atrium, which apparently rules out another pulmonary vein ablation.
Pace and ablate seems to be the thing for folks who have tried everything else.
I also read that it can help heart failure patients.
Thanks. They let me out of hospital late yesterday afternoon after a morning of being pumped with Digoxin, tablet of Bisoprolol and a syringe of Metoprolol. This stopped the tachycardia and reduced HR to a lumpy and irregular 50 to 80. Final ECG still showed AF so I now have to wait for a cardioversion. My worry now is that it won't work as I had one in 2017 where it took them 4 attempts to get back into NSR. This was followed up with my second ablation in 2018. I also know that if a cardioversion is successful, it won't stop me having AF. I guess I'm looking for a plan B because I know how stubborn my very symptomatic AF can be and after two ablations, they may not do a third. In the meantime, I now have to take 5mg Bisoprolol and 62.5 micrograms of Digoxin in the morning. First dose just going down the hatch.
3 days later I've had some success. Intermittent AF interspersed with NSR, then longer periods of NSR. Strangely, if I sat still, I would have a normal HR, but I only had to move slightly and AF kicked off again. But for the last 24 hours it's been pretty solid, although I've split the 5mg of Bisoprolol to 2.5 morning and evening as the bigger morning dose left me a bit drained of energy - most probably 3 days of disturbed, sleep, worry and what they pumped into me in hospital.
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Another Weekend, another bout of AF.
