In & Out of AF

I have been going in and out of AF for most of today. I seem to be mostly in AF but there are periods when I am in NSR (I know this is the case). Does anyone else experience their AF in this way? It feels as if the heart is attempting to convert most of the time and sometimes it is successful only to revert back to AF again. I also exdperience long episodes of AF when this does not happen but this on and off again experience is not uncommon for me and can last many many hours.
Regards.

Are you doing any research regarding the importance of electrolytes to stabilize heart rhythm? Have you ordered Hans book... Lone Atrial Fibrillation - Toward a Cure? Have you visited the Conference Room and begun reading the sessions there... especially those on Magnesium and Potassium? Lots of very informative useful information.

Hi Sujo

I'm actually having the same problem tonight. My AF gets started and then goes out again, I'm getting lots of missed beats and 1-2 second pauses(pretty scary). I've just done a squat on my haunches and leaned forward and tried to blow out my breath really hard. My AFib has reverted back to SR again, but it feels like it's trying to get going again. This is a frightening complaint.

Sujo,

You've posted on PIP flec. With what you describe, PIP is not appropriate. I'd titrate up on flec to a daily dose that keeps you in NSR. Finding NSR is important. You can play around with other ways to hold it after you've gotten there.

On an unusual approach to NSR, I was at a friend's house for dinner last week. When I left, she gave me this book to read:

Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever?
Clinton Ober (Author), Stephen T. Sinatra (Author)
[www.amazon.com]


The thesis is that being literally electrically grounded has many benefits.

Last night I read an anecdote from an adrenergic afibber. He'd had afib for 15+ years. The meds (BB's as I recall) were not too successful. After sleeping grounded for several months, he was able to stay in NSR without meds. They actually sell sheets to keep you connected to ground. See:

[www.amazon.com]

Author Stephen T. Sinatra MD described working with an EP to test the heart rate variability of some subjects. Even over a short period of 2 hours, the HRV increased when the subjects were grounded.

Some of the subjects were grounded using ECG electrodes connected to ground. Also, simple techniques, like walking barefoot on the earth works, too.

I was initially very skeptical when I read this, however it looks interesting enough to experiment with.

The had other data - showing normalization of cortisol profiles over a day after grounding.

George

George,

Fascinating, if true. If you do experiment, I'd be very interested to hear about it.

Lisa

Hi Sujo!
I think I recognize the situation. Are you taking any beta-blocker at your AF-attacks?

As you might have noticed, I have gathered statistical data on my own AF-attacks.
[hem.bredband.net]
I have had 3 rather long events. 2 of them are visible in picture 12 as the peaks in the graph to the left, about 38 and 35 hours in durartion. They happended because I took too little of beta-blocker. My heart tried several times to convert, but flipped back to AF. Very uneven rythme. I interpret this as the Sinus-node and the ectopic foci compete about being the pacemaker and also that impulses are comming from the atrium but the AV-node is in refractory mode. At such an instance the BP falls and you get an adrenalin rush, which activates the ectopic foci again, if there is not enough beta-blocking at hand. The last of these long events happened, when I switch from Nebivolol to Bisoprolol and overestimated the strength of the Bisoprolol. I set a too low level on Bisoprolol, when I instructed the program to calculate the "pill-list"
Example of a "pill-list" in picture 8.

The actual AF-event and its pills you can see in picture 17.

The level I had choosen for Bisoprolol was 7 and as you can see, I added more Bisoprolol manually, as the program has a built in limit of 24 hours, and got up to level 10.5 and converted to sinus after 2128 minutes. It took time and Bisoprolol to counter the earlier surge of adrenalin.

For these three long events I have visited the local health-care centre or the ER at the regional hospital to have an EKG, to see if my current QTc value allows more pills.

George wrote in an earlier thread,
<[www.afibbers.org];
that he thougt my protocol is too much for the average patient. It may be so, but I think there are rather smart patients out there and it has all the time been my view, that a physician should decide about the "levels" of the drugs and also evalute the statistics. As it is now without any statistical data at a visit to the physician, the physician is very much in the dark about what is going on with the patient. Consider the rather long time from that I started to use the protocol, Nov-2009, and the end of my AF, July-2010, there definitly were times when I wondered, if the protocol worked. However, when I checked the trendlines after each attack, I could see that I was slowly going in the right direction. The increase in time between events was almost linear with about 20-25 minutes per day. Without the graphs I would never had noticed, due to the individual variation of each attack.

I agree with George that PIP with Flecainide is out for you. It could even be dangerous as the amount of Flecainide that is taken in the PIP mode is more than what is normal for continous mode.

Hi Lisa,

Sure. Since my afib is well controlled with supplements, I won't have any data there. I suppose I could test for heart rate variability since I have monitors.

The cortisol data caught my eye as my wife has an irregular cortisol profile over the course of the day. If it would normalize it for her, that would be a benefit.

George

Sujo, I getthe same kind of on/off afib you describe. Usually it precedes a full afib episode. For the few hourrs to a day before an episode, I get short runns of afib, some tachycardia, many Pac's.

It seems that when I do make a quick conversion to NSR, it doesnt hold. It's as if I need my time in afib. Once I do my 12 hours, I can come out of afib, and it stays in NSR. I have no theory as to why.

Curt,
We seem to experience similar profiles with our AF and PACs etc. I have been in and out of AF for most of today with many PACs. I notice that my emotional state and focus makes a difference (i.e. if I am distracted, I find I may be back in NSR only to be back in AF once I refocus my attention on my heart). A most curious beast indeed.
I'm happy to discuss further with you at my email clinic@eastadelaide.com.au
Regards.