TO DOUG

Doug,
While you are in permanent a-fib.......do you feel any pain or pressure in your chest? I very rarely get any relief from the pain/pressure (I can't really describe it). If it gets too uncomfortable, I'll take 2-3 nitroglycerin tablets and it'll ease off for a while.

Thanks,
Debbi

Debbi,

I definitely feel pressure in my chest, especially if I am doing anything physical or I'm in a stressful situation. But I don't feel pain.

Generally I just feel tired, kind of anxious, often short of breath, lightheaded especially when bending over. I think I discussed a lot of this a few days ago on another entry about "not feeling Afib" or something. I also described my heart as feeling like a small caged bird trying to escape! I remember describing it to a friend as feeling like squirrel trying to get out. To yet another as like a rock in a tin can bouncing down a hill ! Pretty unpleasant graphic images ( my friends usually wince and change the topic at this point), but they do kind of describe the feeling.

My personal theory is that it is the irregularity of the beat that really makes me feel bad. Sometimes there are bigger than average pauses between beats, followed by a very noticeable beat and then a bit of a run of smaller beats. That pause can be quite alarming; I think that even if you don't really notice it, your body does and becomes alarmed. I think this adds to my general feeling of anxiety. My EP once told me that there are sensors in the main arteries in your neck which can sense this irregularity, and this may be part of what causes the anxiety.

Often when I'm completely still, like lying in bed, I think I can feel the atrium fibrillating, almost like humming or a vibration. Often at night too I feel a kind of pressure, kind of a soreness on the lower left area of my rib cage. Because of the feeling of a shortness of breath, I think I try to compensate by breathing more deeply than normal (also I think the deep breathing is to compensate or over ride the irregularity of the heart beat, to get through some of those pauses). Maybe that is what the soreness in the rib cage is about. Also, I feel a pressure in the lower part of my neck or upper chest area, just above the collar bone. Again, I think this has to do with the deep breathing. Sleeping on my left side can also be quite uncomfortable, depending on how my heart if feeling. I think it just makes the Afib more noticeable, kind of banging away against the pressure of the matress.

When I used to be in a sinus rhythm at least part of the time, I had a feeling of being very short of breath. and felt more comfortable propped up by pillows in bed. I think I read another entry on this site about 2 weeks ago where the person has published a list of the questions they had asked their doctor, and the responses. I think the reason for that discomfort in sinus rhythm was that the heart was struggling to stay in sinus. This is all from memory, you may want to have a look at that entry.

In my case, my GP seems to find it hard to believe that I feel so lousy, because most of his experience with other patients is that they don't even know they are in Afib. I have asked this question in the "not feeling Afib" entry, but again, if anybody feels as lousy as I do, I would appreciate a response, which I will then show to my GP. Hopefully this will influence him when I ask him to fill in the medical portion of my Disability claim.

Hope this was of some use to you. Feel free to ask more questions. Hope you have taken your complaints of pain to your doctors. I'm assuming you have an other wise healthy heart, although the use of nitro is for angina, isn't it?

Doug

You need people to describe the way an afib attack feels? Well, i don't normally like to dwell on the thing when its not happening, but.....

The first thing is a feeling that SOMETHING IS REALLY, REALLY WRONG. My heart is beating really hard and really fast and not in any regular rhythm at all. I can't seem to catch my breath. I'm dizzy. I'm nauseated. I have to urinate, right now, can't wait. A few minutes later i have to go again, just as bad, and again a few minutes after that. I'm sweaty and feel weak. When i try to walk i'm lightheaded and wobbly. When i get to the emergency room they want me to do paperwork and i can't concentrate enough to give the right answers. They want to know what makes me think i'm having an afib attack. I say, because my heart is beating very irregularly. They say, how can you tell it is doing that?

My heart beats very fast, then very slow, then seems to stop entirely before going back to real fast and real hard, but still not regular. I don't know how anybody can have this and not know it. If i take benadryl i can sometimes get to sleep with it, but i can't sleep deeply or very long because of the feeling of something awful happening. There isn't any comfortable position, either sitting, standing, or lying down, but i'm dizzy when i try to stand. I think the body is convinced of an emergency and is putting out fight-or-flight hormones, because i'm very irritable and can barely keep from screaming at people.

Doug, i hope its helpful. I think my experience is a lot like other peoples' that post here, but doctors and nurses do not seem familiar at all with this kind of experience. Apparently most of the afib they see is not in the least symptomatic. I sure wish mine wasn't. Its frightening in itself to realize that you can't find a doctor who knows what you are talking about.

Peggy

Doug,
How strange, my GP says the same thing about my pain or pressure. I too feel like a little bird's trying to escape. My GP just plain finds it hard to believe, but gave me nitroglycerin SL when I ask for it after receiving some relief while hospitalized in the cardiac unit.

She insists it's heartburn, but I take Prevacid daily for hearburn. They changed me to Protonix while in hospital but it didn't make a bit of a dent in heart "pain" "flutter" whatever it's called.

thanks for the info.

Debbi

If any of you are on beta blockers, the feelings of AF will definitely be pronounced. Betas were disasterous to me. The irregular beats were much more pronunced. I couldn't lie on certain sides, and I coudn't sit, without my heart beat plummeting. I was extremely fatigued, as well. The elimination of betas made all the difference. Prior to meds, I only had a few episodes of AFlutter, and though it made me tired, it didn't have near the effects, until I started meds. Debbi, when on acid blockers, you are stopping the proteins from breaking down, therefore making it harder to absorb those critical nutrients, in which the body needs to make your heart beat properly. There is no doubt in my mind, that stress, coupled with Prevacid, caused my arrhythmias. If you tried to eliminate dairy, wheat, and processed foods, you might be amazed, as I was, of what a difference this made. I had no more GERD the second day of these eliminations. Until one is dedicated to making changes from within, one will not have any success. You cannot stay status quo, and then put drugs on top of that, and expect to get better.

Richard

Richard,
So I shouldn't be on Prevacid? What about Protonix, is it the same? I am on 360 mg of Tiazac, plus 25 mg of Metropolol. I have COPD so they don't like keeping me on channel blockers.

Thanks for your help.

Debbi

Debbie,

We just got back from Halloween with the kids, and my wife's birthday is tomorrow, so I'll see what I can find out about Protonix, and get back to you, but I would bet it's reducing your stomach acid. What I did, on the advice of, I think it was Jackie, was to try a tablespoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice. If it helped the problem of acid indigestion then I needed more acid, but if it made it worse, I was high in acid. It didn't make it worse, but did help a bit, so I knew that my problem was more to do with needing more acid, not reducing what little I already had. I started taking natural enzymes, such as amylase, lipase, etc. and also added pepsin and hydrochloric acid for a while, but when I changed my diet, as mentioned above, it made all the difference. You could try diet change for 2-3 days, and see what relief you get. What is COPD?

Richard

What is COPD

Richard,


Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, in my case chronic bronchitis and emphysema


CMain Entry: em·phy·se·ma
Pronunciation: "em(p)-f&-'zE-m&, -'sE-
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek emphysEma, from emphysan to inflate, from em- [2] en- + physan to blow, from physa breath —more at PUSTULE
Date: 1661
: a condition characterized by air-filled expansions of body tissues; specifically : a condition of the lung marked by abnormal dilation of its air spaces and distension of its walls and frequently by impairment of heart action


Thanks for your suggestion about lemon juice. Will try. PS: They give Protonix on to every patient in the Cardiac Wing that I was in.