Thanks for all of your posts! I guess I'm pretty lucky that the loads of meds I am on have, in fact, kept AF at bay. The truth is that it was a precipitous descent into afib for me, from "a few palpitations every few months" to "AF every other day" very suddenly. I still recall what it is like to be completely symptom-free, and feel kind of shortchanged (as I'mby kbog - AFIBBERS FORUM
Can a successful AF ablation be expected to eliminate ectopics? I'm on 300 mg of flecainide & 25 mg extended release metoprolol daily, and want to get off of both, as I'm young and my exercise tolerance is really crappy on these drugs. Even though my EP indicated that flecainide should eliminate PACs, even at the max dose, I still experience frequent PACs, pauses, strong beats, shby kbog - AFIBBERS FORUM
Piggybacking on this thread to ask related questions. I'm up to about 550 mg magnesium per day now - that seems to be the right amount so far, gradually increasing and backing off per the instructions on this site. I tried adding taurine - only 2 doses on back to back days (1/2 teaspoon one day and 1/4 teaspoon the next)- and it seemed to make me SUPER TIRED and also give me a lot morby kbog - AFIBBERS FORUM
QuotePompon There are "long acting" versions of flecainide, to take once a day... Yes! The brand-name drug, Tambocor, had an XL variant that was a sustained release. I have no idea whether this is a recent development, but Tambocor is not available where I live. It may be no longer manufactured? Do you have experience to the contrary? Thanks so much, Pompon.by kbog - AFIBBERS FORUM
Thanks! I think I'd move toward an AF ablation before I'd move to any other classes of AAR. Drugs were always intended as a temporary stop-gap to buy time/let things calm down, from my perspective!by kbog - AFIBBERS FORUM
Yes, flec is usually prescribed BID, but I had noticed a pattern of my heart trying to go into AF in the last several hours before I was supposed to take the next dose, so I dug into the prescribing information and looked at studies at length, only to see that in some rare cases, a patient needed TID dosing for adequate control of symptoms. Also, that children above infant age and under 16 metabby kbog - AFIBBERS FORUM
Jackie, thanks for another set of good things for me to read! kong2018, thank you. Sounds like your approach is similar to mine. Good luck to you as well! George, I'm still acclimating to the realization that doctors seem to follow guidelines and standard practice more than anything else. I've gotten misinformation in response to targeted questions and poor expectation-settingby kbog - AFIBBERS FORUM
Sam, regarding daily use of flecainide and titrating your dose upward, I've been down this road fairly recently. I learned that it took at least 36 hours (and according to literature as many as 4-5 days) for me to see results from the new dosage, so be aware that it can take time to be able to judge fairly. It's also helpful to take it according to a fairly precise schedule, so I'by kbog - AFIBBERS FORUM
I get it, but though I was in misery in November & December & January, lately I'm almost feeling like I was before all this started -- just a few PACs. Maybe that will continue; maybe it won't. With the exception of the drugs / high dose of drugs, everything I'm doing right now to manage this is stuff I'm happy to do indefinitely. So why not see if I can cut back onby kbog - AFIBBERS FORUM
Fibrillator - I don't rule out something like that, but it's not my first choice, especially if there's a chance I can manage the condition naturally. I understand that ablation can be very helpful, but my understanding is that ablations don't guarantee permanent freedom from symptoms, and they are awfully invasive and expensive. I guess I want to avoid using a sledgehammerby kbog - AFIBBERS FORUM
Thanks, Jackie, for the welcome & the reference - I have a read a lot about endurance exercise and AF, but had not seen that thread. I'll definitely dig into the links! It's really easy to find advice that warns against too much endurance exercise, and much more difficult to find specific recommendations for continuing to participate in a way that reduces the risks, so I am paby kbog - AFIBBERS FORUM
Thanks, George. Sounds like our situations with endurance exercise are somewhat similar. I suspect that this past season I was not as good about clean eating and hydration as I had been in past seasons, or perhaps it just finally caught up with me. I also had been put on a maintenance dose of spironolactone (for hormonal acne, an off-label use) a few months prior to the spring of last year, aby kbog - AFIBBERS FORUM
Hello - This is my first post here, as a I am new to this forum. (I'm impressed with the quality of the information here and impressed with the intelligence and frank nature of the forum dialogue too.) I was diagnosed with AF in October, a week before I was to run my first marathon. For me, AF came on rather suddenly and with a vengeance. (I'd been training for and running long diby kbog - AFIBBERS FORUM