As many of us with lone paroxysmal AF have come to recognise the role of our gut health in the scheme of things, and gut and brain are in many ways connected, I thought it may be of general interest to post this link illustrating how science is only now on the cusp of acknowledging the role of the brain microbiome in our health:
I am mindful that 40 years ago the blockbuster drugs of the day were designed to turn off stomach acid 'like a tap' to treat stomach ulcers etc.., whose origin medical wisdom then ascribed to histamine release, spawning a generation of H2 receptor antagonists and similar drugs.
Some of these drugs subsequently found themselves a new role as PPIs, after research in 1982 by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren came to overturn the prevailing view that stress and lifestyle were the major causes of peptic ulcer disease, demonstrating an infectious cause from the common bacterium H pylori, for which they were jointly awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
"It is now firmly established that Helicobacter pylori causes more than 90% of duodenal ulcers and up to 80% of gastric ulcers"
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TeaFree
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I read your links with interest, many years ago after constant stomach pain I was diagnosed with h-pylori. My GP prescribed medication to eradicate it, when the first course didn't work I was prescribed another and that failed too.
Then my sister in the U.S. sent me some garlic oil, thyme and empty capsules to fill with both. This appeared to work for a while but my acidic stomach returned. My sister then told me to try Mastic gum (can't remember whether that was in capsule or tablet form) but it worked and I've not had any constant stomach soreness problems since. If I should ever feel slightly sore, which is very rare now , I cut out ALL fat and vinegar and it immediately goes. A regular member of this forum also suggested I stop eating yogurts and yes that too helped.
I've been totally symptom free for more years now than I can remember.
I'm glad you got to the links before a heavy-handed administrator deleted them out of hand just because I didn't ask their permission first.
For the benefit of others, the first article I linked is accessible by searching 'Microbes in Mind' at the New Scientist site, hardly a hotbed of disinformation.
And the second link was from Nobel Prize.org (ditto) substantiating the source for the quote I provided, which seemed to me best practice.
Anyhow, my point is that the 'substrate' for the sort of AF that defies easy identification of a cause is clearly more protean than the rather narrow and mechanistic attempts to explain it and knock it off, let alone put it right, that even specialists are apt to give much time to.
And, in line with your experience, I think part of the 'audit' anyone new to' lone' AF should go through should involve a determined effort to ensure that their weight and gut health are sound, as the western diet is prone to encourage dysbiosis with wide ranging consequences if our upper gut is not sterile (adequate acidity) and the lower gut has the 'wrong' bacteria in it.
However, what piqued my curiosity about a new frontier for infective agents (in the brain) is the case cited of an otherwise very fit person who presented with brain fog, digestive, issues and cardiac arrhythmia, among other things, that cleared up after treatment for two common bacteria present in her brain.
It struck a chord because I was impressed with how following treatment with a very old antibiotic for a very intractable UTI (possibly brought on by starting Apixaban) I enjoyed a remarkable spell of total remission from AF for many months, which would otherwise certainly have been provoked by the prolonged and acute discomfort of the UTI alone.
Thank you, Ben. Oddly, despite always striving to conduct myself responsibly it has seemed my lot in life whenever I have returned to the UK to find myself in the naughty corner being told how it is by some quasi-official jobsworth because I 'trod on the cracks in the paving stones'. It seldom happens elsewhere, even as a maladroit foreigner. Funny isn't it. Nanny state or what? One is sorely inclined just to do the other thing of course.
As I found out, you might find the next step up the naughty ladder is being "followed" by several Admin staff! It's now "the Way of the Forum", or "the highway".🤔
However, it's still a sad mad world where no attempt is made to distinguish honest contributions from those with less honest intentions.
Thanks for Posting and my apologies for having to put up with this censorship rubbish.
Yes, thank you, Ozziebob. I guess we're both familiar with this 'care pathway'. It is a bit concerning that apparently genuinely non-discriminatory endeavours to lay down the law for everyone equally, end up just keeping the 'moo' and throwing away the 'cow'. There's something very Cultural Revolution about it. Still, I must get back to cleaning the lavs, and leave the guardians of the universe to their thing.
Thank you, Joy. I do agree with your refreshing thoughts. Especially amid so much medical (and other) dogma. The article I tried to link represents something of an injunction to us all to keep an open mind I think. I was much moved years ago by Prof Bronowski's invocation of Cromwell's words, as he sat beside the ashes of his kin: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken". This is especially apt when there really is no satisfactory explanation for the cause of a phenomenon, like lone AF. And for all the virtuosity unquestionably involved in switching off the AF alarm (without necessarily putting out the underlying 'fire'), when we get right down to it, other than RF, the ablation techniques commonly used are quite medieval: freezing, burning, scarring etc..
Freezing, burning, and scarring .. gives me the shivers.
Then it leaving the heart in a lifetime state. Sometimes causes very low BP and Heart Rate.
Getting away from that and keeping you alive is a Pace Maker! ????
I don't believe that is the best solution. Luckily because my left atrium is dilated it is a no along with cardioversion or meds like Flec.
My decisions were no to RAI Treatment (Radioactive Iodine) and no to Suppression. (Heart and being older is a risk). Yes to removal of my Thyroid (causing AF) and now 4 years later with possible showing of cancer (calcification) in 2 lymphs (there are 100 around the thyroid lobes) and thymus.
I have read all about this ... my decision would be again removal. Removing Thymus is a risk being close to pulmonary artery/vein and heart. They may say RAI Treatment but leukaemia, not being successful, damage to throat and invoice box is not for me.
Local stories of 'too much' given leaves me with my sympathy. Yes, we all need to be brave.
One day when all the cancer has gone just may be my Day rapid rate will return to normal. Or is it something else as well? To go from 200+ Day to 47avge bpm Night is a mystery.
How is your AF?
On meds or had ablations?
With your level learned head - I am interested, Teafree.
I'm going to be silent from tomorrow whilst I exploring JAPAN. One poster suggested I look at the Maze ablation done by a Professor in JAPAN not understanding my situation. He had one there.
LET THE WORLD HAVE PEACE. FROM 13-20 OCTOBER IS Universal WORLD Prayer week.
I am extremely sorry to hear about all the health challenges you have had to contend with, Joy. However, I do envy you the autumn maples in Japan.
The problem is that without much coherent grasp of where AF comes from (its aeitiology in medical terms), not least because it likely straddles multiple specialisms, it is very difficult to find a 'magic bullet' to put it right, short of just 'papering it over'.
And the more impatient one is, or urgent the need for a 'fix', the more risk there is of calling down some largely palliative heavy duty medical solution, that may do more harm than good, and sets up a downward spiral, simply because that's what they can do.
Of course it doesn't always help, besides getting priority attention at the ER, that AF is a condition every tyro medic thinks they know and will convey heavy forebodings about to goad you into various courses of action 'for your own good' or to get off the drugs.
Yet, even if one goes the surgical intervention route it pays to join it up with other sensible measures to ensure e.g. sound gut health, thyroid status, vitamin sufficiency, and mental health. It's an exquisitely balanced system medics are prone to neglect.
I have never felt that I should have AF, but had probably suffered from it for years on and off before it was diagnosed in 2009. Much earlier I was told I had 'the perfect heart' when a routine medical spotted a transient anomaly on ECG but dismissed it.
So, when my rate had periodically hit 220+bpm on a running machine or even an energetic uphill walk, I thought 'how fit am I?' That's the number you're supposed to deduct your age from to get your O2 max!' What a numbskull.
So, my LA is dilated too. Which of course is one way AF begets AF. One has to break the vicious circle, and address the 'substrate'. I don't think you have to be an Olympian to lay yourself open to AF initially through over training.
Given the universal medical pessimism about AF's natural course it is particularly easy to reach for ablation or other interventions when the AF episodes become more conjoined, symptomatic, permanent, and/or resistant to drugs and cardioversion. I've been there, and tried an ablation in 2014. Albeit I found an EP who shared my abhorrence of hours of fluoroscopy (we cut that down to a matter of minutes).
It didn't 'take' of course. And I have been all around the houses on my own account since, trying to duck the blanket admonitions of even the very best, well-meaning but seemingly determinedly obtuse medics, to find an alternative route.
I do not pretend such exploration is for everyone but I think it bears consideration for those whose AF is similarly detached from obvious causes. I am fortunate to have 'stood on the shoulders of giants' in this respect, following advice from the likes of Hans Larsen and Dr Sarah Myhill, whose links I would supply here were that not a red rag to an admin' bull. Look them up. Lots of bases covered, curiosity, knowledge, and sympathetic good sense there.
Nevertheless, I'm afraid I may not have much to offer you specifically, bar my sincere support.
However, there is obviously a strong thyroid element to your history, and I have come to be very conscious of the importance of maintaining adequate T3 and mitochondrial status. Even Endos can be a bit broad brush about attending to freeT3 levels, it can be a trial to get a GP to test them, and impossible to get T3 prescribed in isolation, though it is the only active thyroid hormone.
I suspected low thyroid was part of my susceptibility to AF because my cholesterol was elevated andon testing all of my systems seemed consistently to be going a bit slow (heart rate, blood pressure, liver and kidney function, digestion (poor vitamin absorption), even RDW bone marrow function). However, it took me years and my own deductions to tie it to a common genetic defect affecting T4 to T3 conversion, which was vindicated last year by a genetic DIO2 test.
So, I would counsel anyone new to AF to check out their full thyroid and vitamin status privately if they can - a finger prick test costs about £80. It is very easy to miss things like vitamin D and B12 deficiency, as well as sub clinical thyroid dysfunction (GPs tend only to get exercised about a TSH above 10, unless you're pregnant).
The HPA (hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal) Axis is instrumental to the initiation of AF episodes. Whether, adrenergic or vagal, the vagus nerve can hardly fail to convey any excess or irregularity elsewhere straight to your heart. There is a lot to 'gut feel', and perhaps 'head' health too, and in more ways than one, as my original post intimates.
As, finally, and somewhat to my surprise, I deduce that being in a very long-term narcissistic relationship has been no small part of my own AF history. It seems incredible but, trust me, it is a thing. Such extended abuse and similar prolonged stress will spike cortisol and exhaust adrenal function, for which I have taken adrenal and thyroid glandulars by way of support, as well as all the usual supplements.
So, as I say, I have set a lot of hares running in course of my AF exploration. Too many to point a finger at any one. However, the acid-test is that so far throughout a very brutal and protracted breakup of a very long relationship which, probably not coincidentally, came hard on the heels of Covid lock-down and a mini stroke, I can testify that I have against all the odds maintained NSR without medication (bar minimal prudent anticoagulation to my own specification).
It is inconceivable that I could have done this previously for so long let alone under such stress. And it has only become more improbable as I am older. So, whether by luck, diligence, or sheer unlooked for liberation, I have (for now) found some relief.
And I hope that you may too (as if completing this interminable post is not enough!).
It's fascinating to see how our understanding of gut health and the microbiome is evolving, especially as it relates to heart health and conditions like AF—truly another testament to the complexity and interrelation of our body's systems. I think it furthers supporting the holistic view of treating AF and encouraging a broader understanding of its wide causes and management.
I think that's absolutely right, Fraser. The fact that the origins of lone AF particularly are so elusive suggests a more joined up approach, as opposed to a siloed one, is called for. Which runs counter to the medical norm of course. The stomach ulcer precedent is instructive because the cause was eventually identified as an infective agent, which rendered prior (highly profitable) panaceas like 'switching off the acid tap' just as obsolete as, one hopes, ablations and other such shots at knocking off our AF alarm may one day become.
TracyAdmin Hi long-suffering admin folks. I googled the article apparently linked to in this post. It seems innocuous to me. What is the criteria for not approving links? I assume this link was looked at before it was deleted.Whilst I would expect links to COVID conspiracies, flat Earthers etc to be unapproved, this does not seem to be the case. It would help therefore if the criteria (as it's not obvious) was published. Or republished. Happy to take this one via Chat
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Thank you Tracy, if we knew what was acceptable or not then this would educate what people posted. Also, does this mean that links are potentially deleted just because they are links, rather than the Mod clicking through to check as they would have to do if permission was sought? The implication is that the links in the post above were just deleted regardless?
Yes, Secondtry, I agree. it's so easy when hit with something that puts you on every medic's radar to go looking for a big, single cause, or, worse, industrial-strength solutions. However, for the surprisingly large proportion of AF sufferers for whom there is no obvious 'smoking gun', it is just sound housekeeping to take AF as a wake-up call and do an assay of all those things that can creep up on us and join up to lower our threshold of resistance to AF. Which can after all be induced in anyone. Unfortunately, western diet and lifestyle are front and centre in upsetting a sound, antiseptic, stomach and healthy gut biome. The vagal nerve is a potent vector, and the oesophagus (as every EP knows) is just millimetres from the left atrium. It would be no surprise at all for there to be a chance infective element too in many instances, overlaying other genetic and habitual predispositions. The brain is just a new and comparatively unsuspected frontier in what was already an exquisitely integrated challenge looking for a similarly comprehensive solution in many cases.
Perfectly put! I despair at both the paucity of research seeking the cause and the machine that drives the standard two offers pills or ablation.
Ask about causes as I tried to do today when consulting an experienced EP and the response is very tactfully there is no time for that.
11 years ago I was offered an ablation with 70% success rate and declined, today it was offered again at 85% success rate 😃. A comment was added that procedure improvements occur every 5 years; so I may hang on for a higher success rate, as one under 90% does not greatly appeal to me.
It is certainly tempting to push that big red button marked 'ablation'. And you have held out a good deal longer than I did when I cried 'uncle' at five years after several cardioversions back in 2014 (with about zero success, it turned out despite my EP declaring victory). Having pulled about every lever available to me since, from lifestyle to supplements and thyroid/adrenal glandulars, I am at a bit of loss to know which worked! However, since my last cardioversion over a year ago (and even prior to it) something had changed perceptibly. Had it been bottled whatever it was would be hailed a miracle elixir by now. And despite my distinguished EP's forebodings about imminent heart failure, likelihood of relapse, and probable need for invasive 'hybrid' surgery (children with hammers come to mind..) have maintained NSR ever since with minimal drugs beyond dabigatran anticoagulation, which I keep up for a quiet life but largely because I think it plays an important role in eliminating inflammation and countering LA remodelling (I got my Neuro to prescribe it after Apixaban caused me UTIs). I hope if you take the plunge the PVI will be a lasting 100% for you. Nevertheless, you can certainly help your own odds if not sort yourself out for a spell.
My Grandmother fed me Oak Bark Tea as recommended by Gypsy Petrolingo for stomach pains caused by anxiety when I was young. These days I refuse to take any PPIs but have not needed to attack any oak trees for years.
My Gran used to give us all Indian Brandee for stomach upsets. I can recall the strong taste even now. It seemed to work. No idea what it contained, but it seemed to help at the time, no idea what it contained. I agree on PPIs they, without a shadow of doubt made my arrhythmia episodes worse.
My mother's 'cure' was warm water mixed with whisky and sugar'. It ivariably made me vomit and that cured the tummy aches. I have never touched whisky in my adult years !
Yes, BobD, having observed the heyday of Zantac and Omeprazole and similar would-be blockbuster drugs (the forebears of today's blockbuster GLP-1s), whose acid target, as I illustrate above, proved to be beside the point, I am a little disconcerted too at the second (cheaper off-patent) coming of these drugs as PPIs. Which can, a bit like statins in another context, be prescribed a little too glibly as a whac-a-mole response to everything 'tummy'. No doubt a lot of people have too much stomach acid and might do well to change their diet,, and stop eating within three hours of bed. However, I suspect at least as many ageing 'AFers', like me, have too little (hypochlorhydria), which leads to systemic dysbiosis which PPIs will only aggravate.
Yes I receive our NZ Neurological Magazine and I read that
Parkinson's begins throug and because of the gut makeup.
That is why plain yoghurt is so good for you.
I'm glad in my case that my disintegrated gall bladder was removed
(now through tummy button) in 2000.
So much trouble with acid, wind, sore tummy that life was difficult.
Now 24 years later I know what I comfortably eat.
The man who got Parkinson Disease he thought from his job environment was right as his office was a place to keep fertiliser and guess what happens when you fling down a bag of fertilser!
Yes, it was also a fascinating aspect of the NS article that the much demonised plaques which have been a dementia drug target turn out, rather like that stomach ulcer 'acid tap' before them, to be something of a red herring (and actually part of the clean up crew) in the quest for a cure for dementia that may well have similarly infective origins. For anyone interested in scientific revolutions it is food for thought. There is always a certain inertia in amending professional wisdom. I was introduced to the concept of 'evidence-based medicine' on a course recently, and the first thought to occur to me was to wonder that there was any other kind.
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Still in Af
Fast AF 
AF and Stress
Warfarin or one of the new DOACs?
