Atrial Fibrillation!

[Attic]

Hi everyone I have PMR, have recently been diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation and am now on Beta Blockers and Blood Thinners as well as Pred.

I was just wondering, has anyone else been diagnosed with this while having Pmr?

Thank you, Jenny x

[PMRpro Ambassador]

Use the search box at the top right, enter atrial fibrillation and then in the Filter results choose PMRGCAuk - it will bring up past posts on the topic. There are quite a few of us.

I developed a/f early in the days of PMR symptoms but just thought "palpitations" (so did the GP) and it wasn't until I was admitted to hospital with severe sacroiliac problems and they used i.v. diazepam as a muscle relaxant that we discovered what it was! I had a drug reaction and had 5 hours of heart rate 230 and a/f. Two nights running. Once it was diagnosed and treated with medication we realised that these earlier episodes had been paroxysmal a/f! The cardiologist is confident it is due to the autoimmune part of PMR and it definitely is worse if the PMR flares.

For about 4 years it was fairly well managed - they don't do ablation here unless they must - but in spring this year the intermittent dizzy spells got worse. To cut a long story short, they found I was having tachycardic (fast) episodes followed by bradycardias (very slow with quite long pauses) so they gave me a pacemaker. The a/f isn't perfect but pretty well managed. If I catch an episode quickly a small bottle of magnesium pidolate will stop it quite quickly.

I am on a betablocker, an anticoagulant (Pradaxa, 2x daily) and an antiarrythmic (3x daily) plus pred and separating them for optimal dosing means pills 5x a day - thank goodness for a dosette box and phone alarm!

[Thomas45]

I had Paroxysmal AF for many years before PMR. I had PMR for 4 years, and six months later my AF was found to be persistent, though I can't feel it most of the time.

I have also had asthma during that time and still have it, 45 years after it was first diagnosed.

I am "free' of PMR, my asthma is controlled by inhalers most of the time, and I continue to take Warfarin as an anticoagulant. I take nothing else for the persistent AF.

.I was prescribed beta blockers by a well meaning hospital doctor after my heart rates shot up to around 200 under general anesthesia for an appendictomy,. Unfortunately. I had rare and very rare side effects of beta blockers so was taken off them.

Unfortunately I now have chronic urticaria which is not controlled most days despite the medication.

I try to forget about it but it comes with a vengeance most days. I still carry on a normal life.

[pakien]

Yes I was diagnosed with AF 2 years ago, PMR since 2014,Now the Doc is saying Borderline type 2 Diabetic. What Next.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to pakien]

Try cutting your carbohydrate intake a lot - several people on the forum have moved back from the brink of diabetes by doing so.

[Judy211 in reply to PMRpro]

Interestingly there is now a possible link between very low carb diets and Afib!

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Judy211]

Apart from the fact I don't recommend VERY low carb, it certainly wasn't the cause of mine! I say cut carbs drastically - most people don't realise they are eating probably 3 or 4 times as much carb, especially sugar, as they need.

And the study was a retrospective observational dietary one - notoriously unreliable. Most people can't remember what they ate last week, never mind last year! And most people are very unaware of what food groups are in their meal: "I'm eating low carb - I just love fruit ..."

"Zhuang said that while the research shows an association, it cannot prove cause and effect. A randomized controlled trial would be needed to confirm the relationship between carbohydrate intake and AFib and assess the effect in a more ethnically diverse population. In addition, the study did not track participants with asymptomatic AFib or those who had AFib but were never admitted to a hospital, nor did it investigate different subtypes of AFib, so it is unknown whether patients were more likely to have occasional episodes of arrhythmia or persistent AFib. The study did not account for any changes in diet that participants may have experienced after completing the questionnaire."