Food Diary, lack of sleep, and Ectopics

[Massa]

Hi, still trying to nail down the triggers for my ectopics and had a great suggestion from Blearyeyed with regards keeping a detailed food diary which I have now started doing. Has anyone else tried this and what sort of lag can you expect between the trigger and symptoms.Also if lack of sleep / tiredness is causing the ectopics could one really bad night's sleep of 4 hours trigger ectopics if you are already tired.

Thanks for reading

[BaronFrankenstein]

I get it when Ive had a long day, not so much when im doing strenuous work but when i get fatigued and immsat relaxing or lying in bed.

[Massa in reply to BaronFrankenstein]

Thank you, I can relate to that. How long does it take to get a reset? Does one good nights sleep seem to fix it or does it drag on for a couple of days albeit getting less and less

[BaronFrankenstein in reply to Massa]

It depends. In my job i walk anything between 3 to 5.5 miles a day and do shifts up to 12 hours long, plus its quite strenuous and stressful work. If i have a tough week it can take me several days to feel ok again.

I get like a heavy feeling in my chest and sometimes palpitations and a pain in my wrist and arm. The heavy feeling & palpitations wears off after a few hours, the pains can last a day or more on and off. Thats just my own personal experience. I had a HA and stent fitted in my LAD artery back in December.

[devonian186]

I have been keeping a food diary for around 5 years. It is very detailed and includes a diary of activities during the day. I also keep a weather diary as that is one of my interests.

Our health is closely related to weather and our daily activities. For example high humidity/low cloud and extreme temperatures have an impact, as do pollen levels.

For example, if you try to do a lot of uphill walking in high humidity and high pollen levels the heart will be working harder and may trigger ectopics. All made worse if you haven't slept well.

So there are lots of other factors that may trigger attacks which includes traffic levels, cleaning products, mobile phone and servers, not to mention anxiety, work problems etc.

So all these need to be explored before you even get on to food! as regards this i think some things are pretty instant, for example caffeine. With some people strong cheese has an effect.

I think some things build up, for example I used to get IBS but invariably that was brought on by my general diet not by a specific meal.

So I would cast your net wider as your problem may be caused by food but there are lots of other factors, including lifestyle, sleep, weight, weather and many more, none of which might be the single cause but have a cumulative impact..

[Ennasti]

My triggers are being unwell (with any kind of virus and also recent chest infection), strenuous exercise or overdoing it walking, and vaccinations. I don’t have dietary triggers.

[Massa in reply to Ennasti]

Thanks Ennasti, once triggered how long does it take for things to calm down especially if you have over done it or tired

[Lexi72]

Hi Massa . I have recently had an ablation to try to zap my ventricular ectopics . The operation went went well but unfortunately it does not seem to have worked . I had to get a fit to travel letter after the operation and the doctor did an ECG which still showed them. My proper follow up appointment with my cardiologist is in about a month when I am hoping to have a 24 holter to confirm and to see if I need a second ablation. In the meantime I bought a 6 lead kardia ECG machine machine to see if I could see the ectopics on the ECG. I am lucky and usually can’t feel my ectopics. It is quite expensive and you have to buy the Kardia plus a years subscription if you want this feature. The algorithm does in my case show up the ventricular ectopics (it says I still have a lot ). Since I bought my new toy I have been trying to experiment eg by cutting out all caffeine etc to see if anything in particular triggers them. Usually I have them all the time. If you can feel your ectopics you may have no need of a machine to tell you when you have them and your diaries sound a great idea.I am not sure is anyone else on the forum has tried using a Kardia for this purpose and if so whether it was any help identifying triggers. Kardia seem to be most commonly used for identifying A fib episodes which are not always picked up when you have a holter ECG