I had a heart attack in late 2019, and soon after had an ICD fitted. After 2 years of getting to know a new array of feelings in my chest I was, until a couple of weeks ago, feeling very well and very confident.
But a week ago I had a serious event where I was informed my ICD nearly went off due to uncontrollable Tachycardia that lasted 10 seconds. This is the first significant event since my heart attack.
The night before this happened I did something VERY unusual for me (I'm close to teetotal) : I stayed up all night with a relative and drank a whole bottle of wine during the 12 hours. Does anyone know if this is the likely reason to have triggered my event?
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DiggyDoggy
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I don’t have any experience of drinking alcohol however, I found this information on the BHF which might be useful to you. If you skip down to section 3, you will see that it’s mentioned that drinking an excess of alcohol can cause arrhythmias.
Wine contains a preservative called sulphites, this is a known trigger for heart arrhythmias. You can buy sulphite free wine, but you can't store it for long.
So drinking the wine was more than likely the cause of your tachycardia.
I can get away with one glass of wine, any more than that sets my AF off. Think it depends on the person and how well they can tolerate the sulphites. As I said, it's a well known trigger for arrhythmias.
Thank you. Can I ask another question? Despite my husband having had a heart condition for 25 years & HF since 2012 the electrics of the heart is new to me & I'm really struggling to understand it all. His nurse said there are 100's of different types of arrythimias!!
So we found out recently that he had VT's on Christmas Day but his ICD paced him out of them but he did have a pint of beer that day. Probably a dim question but... Is tachycardia a fast HR above 100 & is it the same thing as a VT?
Hope you're both doing OK. Jeanjeannie is right about sulphites! My hubby is seriously allergic to them (not in wine because he doesn't drink - but in most squashes and cordials!!). Lots of love and hugs. Jan xxxx
Hi Jan, so lovely to hear from you. Hope all is well with you & hubby?
Tbh, it's been a really tough year, my hubby's HF has gone into a massive decline in the last 3 years for various reasons & even more so this year with his electrics seriously going haywire!
Unfortunately it's left him very vulnerable & quite fragile now. I asked his cardiologist if he can recover from this & was told it's hard to say but his heart function has declined, the aim is to keep him alive for as long as possible!
I'm really trying to understand the electrics, arrythimias etc but I just can't get my head round it at all & I really can't understand why I can't understand it.....if that makes any sense!
I'd never even heard of sulphites until today! So hubby rarely drinks and hasn't had a beer since Christmas day but he drinks orange & lemonade if we do go out, would that contain sulphites?
Hubby is fine.His bypass in 2018 turned his life around. I'm about to have a nodule taken out of my lung so that'll be fun and games on Friday!! Went for my pre op today.
I tend to look at labels before I buy anything for him. The reactions he had from sulphites were breathlessness and racing heart. They've now stopped! I really don't think it's a coincidence.
Thanks for the link, I've had a quick look & wow, that's quite a list! We're ok on most of it as we don't really do prepared/packaged food. We make our own chips, cooked in air fryer & we make our own bread, you can really taste the difference in shop bought bread, plus we don't use salt. We dry out own fruit, again in the air fryer. And we buy fresh fish & freeze it ourselves so presumably that's ok, it seems to be anything that's got a preservative in it. Will have a better look when my internet isn't playing up so much.
Good to hear hubby is doing well. Good luck with the op, I assume lump will be biopsied?
Hi Lezzers. Wow, what a lovely, healthy diet you've got. I'll report back on the op (got to ring up tomorrow morning to see if a bed is available!). I'm sure it'll get biopsied!
We're not as good as we used to be diet wise. When Kevin got his cancer diagnosis he went off track a bit, he kind of felt he'd tried so hard to look after his heart and and then was blindsided by that and thought what's the point! We did go through a stage of buying up all the yellow stickered food in M&S but we've got over that addiction now 🤣I hope there's a bed available for you tomorrow, you must feel a bit on edge about it and just want it over & done with.
Thanks so much Lezzers. I hope Kevin's cancer was/is treatable - I'm not sure how I missed that in past messages - duh! I'll report back after 10.00am if I have a bed!!
Unfortunately he got caught up in the circumstances of 2020. Diagnosis was delayed & there was some spread, whether earlier diagnosis would have helped is something we'll never know, treatment was limited due to his heart condition. They can't say he's cured & they won't say he's in remission either, apparently some small microscope cells may lurking somewhere but so far so good!
Anyway, I hope by now you know if you have a bed or not. Either way, good luck 🤞
Thanks Lezzers. Still a bit painful but Cocodamol seems to help. The hospital gave me morphine to take but it made me feel weird and sick!!! Really appreciate your kind thoughts. I hope you're both doing OK. Love and hugs. Jan xxxxx
tachycardia is the term you’d call any type of arrythmias which brings the HR higher than 100 bpm.
VT stands for ventricular tachycardia which is a fast rhythm of the pumping chambers (the ventricular).
This is the most dangerous tachycardia because can become uncontrollable and lead to cardiac arrest, hence the need for your husband to have the ICD fitted so it can shock him in the unlikely event that the VT cannot be paced back to normal rate.
I have history of VT and AT, I’ve had an ICD fitted almost 20 years a ago but luckily it has never shocked me.
Also, I confirm that alcohol is a well known trigger for tachycardias, although I’d say, alcohol abuse is, a glass of wine has never given me trouble: as Italian I’d have a glass of wine with my meals at times and it is perfectly fine.
Alcohol 100% triggers my tachycardia. I used to drink quite a lot, but have cut down considerably.
I have Dilated Cardiomyopathy, regular palpitations, which I’ve had all my life. I’m now 55.
I went out Saturday night with the girls and I drank Prosecco and Rosè wine. I drank lots of water before bed, but around 2am I woke having strong palpitations. These went on for around 3 hours. I have a loop recorder fitted, so my app was very busy that night!
I normally drink vodka and I’m not too bad on that.
As Jean said above, it must be the sulphites in the wine.
I love a drink or 6 but alcohol definitely triggers my palpitations.
After lots of water and time, they soon settle.
I always say I’m never going to drink again, but I do. I don’t do it very often now. Just on social occasions.
I take Losartan 100 mg per day but I split the dose to 75mg at 8 am and 25mgs at 3pm. I like a drink and checked about alcohol and Losartan. There are no specific warnings I can see on the leaflet but I checked online and it said that alcohol can increase the effect of Losartan so it should be taken cautiously if this happens. I don't drink during the day so this probably gives a decent gap if I want a drink at night. When I was splitting the dose to 50mg in the morning and 50mgs in the evening I had the odd AFib incident. Another tip as others have said is that wine seems to be a drink that is not recommended with medication presumably due to the sulphites. The ones that seem the best are gin, vodka and whiskey.
All alcohol will increase heart rate. Wine and prosecco effect me if I drink more than 1 or 2.It was an unusual event for you and your body has told you that you overdid it.Its hard at times not being able to do what you want .I enjoy a drink but have learned over time my limits.Good luck and don't worry too much about it .🙂
Yes I'm sure it did, happens with me can't drink wine or cider can have half a lager shandy .if I drink wine or cider will set off an episode other things can do it aswell too much chocolate, fatty foods, too much salt ,strong coffee
I am not an expert in this field, and neither are all the amazing people on this site!! However, we can all give our own educated guesses or refer tou to documentations or links that have information. All I can day from my own experience is that after my first heartbattackni 2021 I decided to stop smoking and drinking!! Iven bot smoked or drunk alcohol since then. The reason was absolutely fear to be honest!! also I didntblike the fact that my heart would beat faster after a few drinks. I wondered what my life would be like being a non smoker and a non drinker? My life is better than it was before!! I've had 3 heart attacks in total and a double cabg!! For me life is about being blessed to be alive!! I've been told by my GP and cardiologist that it's perfectly ok to have a few drinks but I don't want to!! Im sure one or 2 SMALL glasses of wine wouldn't do you any harm at all!! I used to have an extra large wine glass!! Good luck and I hope you are OK.
Alcohol put me into atrial fibrillation with tachycardia in the 1st place and a few days later a stroke. I was just a social drinker like the majority of people. Now don't drink alcohol at all or caffeine or anything fizzy as instructed by my cardiologist. He said l was lucky to be alive after such a big stroke. I think of alcohol as a poison now but do miss it sometimes especially on a warm summers evening.
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