Atriall Fibrillation

[simonineaston]

I've just begun to have the occasional missed heartbeat - alarming! Nothing like AF, by the sound of it. GP has looked at an ecg and told me to go away and not worry. I don't know whether to find that worrying or not !

[Jdsk]

Did she find anything on the ECG, and if so what was it?

Thanks

Jonathan

[simonineaston]

With respect to the ECG, her exact phrase was, "We've had a look and everything looks normal."

[Jdsk]

Thanks.

NHS advice on palpitations:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/heart-palpitations/

and NICE summary:
https://cks.nice.org.uk/topics/palpitations/

(Current (!) usage is that palpitations are what patients feel.)

Jonathan

[simonineaston]

Thanks - helpful

[axel_knutt]

I've just begun to have the occasional missed heartbeat - alarming! Nothing like AF, by the sound of it. GP has looked at an ecg and told me to go away and not worry. I don't know whether to find that worrying or not !

This is a recording (off my HRM) of my heart stopping whilst I was sat watching TV just before my AF was diagnosed. When I was taken in to A&E two months later I played it for the paramedics, who were somewhat bemused, then again for the consultant in A&E who told me to make sure cardiology got to hear it. Cardiology just shrugged, and couldn't care less.

Since then I've had my heart stopped deliberately with adenosine several times, and whilst I was a bit nervous about it the first time I wasn't fazed thereafter. I was told it was going to make me feel really ill, but afterwards I told them that cycling had been making me feel worse than that.

Once when I was in hospital they brought a guy in and plonked him in the bed opposite mine looking veery ill. I forget what his heart rate was when he arrived, but I sat there watching it go down and down: 45, 40, 35, 30, 25......and at every milestone I grew increasingly astonished and anxious that they were taking no notice. Down it went, 20, 18, 15, and finally 12 before it stopped altogether. Then there was a flurry of activity, and after the curtains drew back an hour or so later he was sat there chirpy as anything with a wire sprouting out of his neck and connected to a pacemaker on the bedside table. I spent the rest of the day chatting to him about his days as a Stirling bomber pilot, and his Piper Super Cum that he was still flying (under supervision).

With respect to the ECG, her exact phrase was, "We've had a look and everything looks normal."

It always does, except for when it doesn't.

(Current (!) usage is that palpitations are what patients feel.)

My heart has quite a long repertoire of symptoms:

1 A brief burst of rapid ventricular beats
2 As above, but continuous for hours/days
3 Rapid vibrating, like a mobile phone
4 A feeling like a sack of frogs
5 A feeling like an airlock hammering in a water pipe
6 A feeling like the vibrations of a train felt through the seat back. (Confusing when on a train)
7 When a beat goes missing, it feels like an extra large heart beat, often accompanied by the room doing a pirouette.
8 A feeling like my heart is 'yawning'
9 A feeling like cramp in my gullet
10 Nothing at all

[simonineaston]

Crikey! I'm going to start considering myself lucky...

[Tim Holman]

Yes: Crikey, Simon! I recognise some of these, Axel but thankfully I'm much more settled now. The thing you can never get across to others is how much it does affect your everyday experience and how you listen to your own heart all the time in a way that "normal" people do not. They are fortunate that theirs just beats on unheard and steadfast in the same way that most healthy people are unaware of their breathing or their digestion or any bodily functions...until they go wrong. As someone said upthread "all is normal... until it's not".
Strength to all of us,
Tim

[bikes4two]

I've just begun to have the occasional missed heartbeBM at - alarming! Nothing like AF, by the sound of it. GP has looked at an ecg and told me to go away and not worry. I don't know whether to find that worrying or not !

With respect to the ECG, her exact phrase was, "We've had a look and everything looks normal."

It always does, except for when it doesn't.

Simon, I'd thoroughly recommend that you get yourself a heart rate monitor (HRM) - something like a Polar H10 or a much more comfortably worn Rhythm+™ Heart Rate Monitor Armband or the Rhythm 24 Heart Rate Monitor Armband - I've used the Rhythm+ for around 5 years paired with the android app HR Monitor by BM Innovations GmbH. With my smart phone mounted on the handle bars, In the record mode you'll quickly see if your HR suddenly jumps (or drops due to missing a beat or two).. This tech has helped me identify persistent AF 6 times in the past 5 years - it also gives me confidence that between episodes of AF when I'm feeling below par, that it isn't AF but just me feeling low.

[cc1085]

Hi All,
Thanks for replies and great advice. I have been put on Edoxaban, a blood thinner, and attended my local GP today. My older brother has the condition for 13 years and had all the tough stuff like warfarin but that has changed now for the better. I will have Echo Cardiogram and halter monitor shortly. I haven't been out on the bicycle yet but I'm 71 and got this far without so much as a chipped fingernail. I have never been to hospital or had any health issues so I don't have any complaints . I may have more meds depending on results of further tests.
Thom

[Jdsk]

Thanks for the update.

I hope that the investigations are done quickly so that you can agree a plan, including the cycling.

Jonathan

[Cowsham]

Hope you are all well that have this condition. My mother has it too but had it all her life from as far back as she can remember. She wasn't ever a particularly athletic person but wasn't a couch potato either. Always at something or other and still teaching at 82.

I have a few peers who were very athletic and have developed the condition -- some cyclists and two weightlifting / bodybuilding champions. Seems like a common theme among extreme athletes especially cyclists by the looks of it. Must be something to do with prolonged periods of intense physical activity.

[Jdsk]

A couple of recent systematic reviews of AF in athletes:
viewtopic.php?p=1751355#p1751355

Jonathan

[axel_knutt]

As someone said upthread "all is normal... until it's not".

I had two Bruce tests, three holter monitors, and more ECGs than you could poke a stick at, but the only time they ever saw my arrhythmia was the other ten occasions I fetched up at A&E in an ambulance. On one occasion my AF stopped just as we turned into the hospital entrance, and on another I asked the paramedic to unhook me from the monitor so that I could go to the loo before we got into the ambulance, then when I came back downstairs I said "can you wire me back up again, I think it's stopped", so he did, and it had. Whilst we dithered about what to do, it started up again, so we got in the ambulance.

Simon, I'd thoroughly recommend that you get yourself a .... Rhythm+™ Heart Rate Monitor Armband or the Rhythm 24 Heart Rate Monitor Armband

If they work for you that's fine, but they're optical ones that measure pulse rate, not electrical ones measuring heart rate, and they don't work for me. The reason is that when I'm in AF my heart makes one strong beat alternating with two weaker ones: S w w S w w S w w etc, and the optical monitors only count the strong pulses. The day I was first diagnosed, the paramedic walked in and put an oximeter on my finger which read a nice normal 72bpm, but by the time I was wired to the ECG you could see that my true heart rate was 216bpm, the difference between counting all beats, or just one in three. When we got to A&E, the triage nurse at the door also put a clip on my finger, and at 70bpm she saw no need for any hurry, so the paramedic showed her the ECGs and explained, but she didn't take a blind bit of notice of him. Arrhythmia is an electrical problem, you need and electrical instrument to monitor it.

My heart has quite a long repertoire of symptoms:
.....

One of the paramedics listened to my heart with a stethoscope and described it as 'tympanic'. I've never been able to find any explanation of that term anywhere, but I knew exactly what he meant, because that's how it felt: hollow and resonant like a drum, and not the usual dull thud.

[pete75]

Yes, diagnosed in 2014. Didn't know I had it until discovered in a routine blood pressure check by my GP using stethoscope and sphygmomanometer. Prescribed blood thinners and beta beta blocker to control heart rate. The only real problem I had was worry after reading about the possible effects of AF on the web. No noticeable physical effects either before or after diagnosis and have just carried on doing everything I did before I discovered I had AF.
My advice is don't read a lot of stuff on the web , you'll only scare yourself. NHS, British Heart Foundation and Arrythmia Alliance websites are the only ones worth looking at.

Father in law was diagnosed with AF at 56 and managed to live an active life until he died 40 years later.