Shortening Afib episode - Vagal

Hi. I'm a vagal afibber - every 2 weeks or so in the middle of the night. If I'm awake when it starts, I can usually stop it by getting up and moving around. If it starts when I'm asleep, I have no such luck. Usually lasts 2 - 4 hours, but 7 hours two nights ago. Wondering about techniques other vagal afibbers use to stop or shorten the episode when it is in full gear. Anyone have any success? I don't use meds at this point. Thanks, and I look forward to participating in this forum. Ralph

p.s. last year I was in afib about 10 - 15% of the time (for 4 months), but it has been consistently about 1% since December, and I attribute that to some yoga, meditation, magnesium and taurine. I haven't been able reduce it further and I'm able to live with it pretty easily with this frequency. I mainly want to avoid it getting worse again, and the 7 hour episode got me worried enough to join the phorum.

Ralph,

You might try ginger before you go to bed [www.afibbers.org]

You also might get set up with PIP (on-demand) flecainide. It normally works for me in an hour or two, sometimes as short as 30 minutes.

[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

George

Flec + Diltiziam stopped it for me in 2-3 hrs.

What worked for me was doing a brisk walk. Generally 1/2 hour of brisk walking was enough to stop it, but sometimes I had to walk longer.

Along the same line as above, i can usually terminate a stubborn episode by climbing stairs. I am of course short of breath during one of these, and when i get upstairs i sit on the end of my bed to breathe, and as my heartrate goes down, the afib seems to slow down too. It gives one last big thump and goes back to blessed NSR. It has been a couple of years since i have had to do this. thanks to electrolyte supplementation, the few episodes i have had since have all been comparatively short and mild.

PeggyM