taurine conversion

Had an interesting experience this morning! I have been battling vagal afib for over 10 yrs, I have tried every thing with varying degrees of success. I have controlled it only to have those protocols eventually fail, have followed the advice here on afib.org. Oh, I should also point out that I don't have access to cardiologists, electrophysiologists and the arrythmic drugs, fleic, rythmol etc. All I have is the VA and their "arrythmic clinic" run by a Physicians assistant who says their isn't 3 kinds of afib their is just afib period, and prescribes a beta blocker for vagal afib. Any way so I have been on my own throught his whole BS! Now, this AM I woke up at 5:30 AM in afib, groaned and said here we go again, took my regular morning aspirin and a nattokinase and started about my day, while I was mixing up my AM meds, Taurine, L arginine, Potassium, magnesium etc, I thought what the hell I am going to take a massive dose of taurine with this and see what happens, the worst it could do is kill me, and believe me at 70 yrs old and unable to ever retire, and no decent health care, I could really care less! So I took the meds along with three grams of taurine dissolved in water and ate my breakfast - in about 45 min I could feel a "rush" from the taurine and my heart started beating really fast (124 min)( I should also state that my pulse gets very slow during afib) and after about 10 mins of this it CONVERTED to NSR, I then took a metoprolol to slow my heart rate back down and went on about my business for the day! Maybe I have found a way to convert when I want it to, although like with every thing else with this damnable condition it will probably not work the next time!! Anyway I thought I would share with you alll!! RG

Awesome! Is the VA really that bad? Yikes

Bob - that's very good news. Not entirely unexpected as taurine is often a missing element both from a dietary standpoint but also some supplement routines.. although here, we've been using the The Essential Trio for arrhythmia for a long time. Glad you decided to try it.

Note that for some afibbers, arginine may be more of a trigger than a help. If you have continued bouts of AF, then consider stopping arginine for a month or two to see if anything changes. Try to be very mindful of your potassium intake from foods (add more) and the hidden salt in most commercially prepared foods (use less) .... that imbalance alone can make it impossible to maintain a calm heart. Try for intake of 4 to 1 potassium to sodium. If you haven't read the introduction to CR 72...that's a good place to start.

I commiserate with you about the quality of the VA system... disgraceful.. You deserve better. Apparently, can be substandard regionally from what various people tell me. Actually, in many ways, not seeing MDs that don't understand the importance of nutrition can actually be a good thing since they'll just push drugs which may not be helpful and can make things worse.

Let us know your progress.
Have a Healthy New Year.
Jackie