meaning of "trigger"

Pardon me if this has been covered extensively.

You hear a lot about things that trigger a-fib, like caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, etc. When I hear the word trigger, I assume that what's meant is that very shortly after consuming the suspected food, or drink, one has a-fib symptoms, not, for instance, the next afternoon. Is that the consensus?
Otherwise, it seems difficult to assign "blame" to a particular food or drink. If I have a double espresso in the morning, and symptoms at 3pm, I don't really have a reason to suspect the espresso, right? Maybe it's just random. There doesn't seem to be much science connecting caffeine and a-fib anyway, but it makes sense intuitively.

Thanks.

John,

Not with food, but high output, long duration endurance activities have a delayed vagal trigger for me. This can be several days after the fact. I know because it is repeatable. Also, I have monitors and I can watch as my heart gets more ectopic beats and then afib. What will happen is initially my resting heart rate will increase for a day or so after the exercise, then it will drop below normal. It is at this time I'm at risk.

Not with afib, but I know that symptoms of some kinds of food sensitivities can occur up to several days after ingestion. These typically are IgG rather than IgE immune responses. It does make it hard to sort out. I have a friend who determined these IgG responses via testing, then avoided those foods and eliminated his migraines. After understanding the relationship, he tried to reintroduce the food and got the migraine two days later.

People here have reported coffee triggers, but some found that it was the chemicals on the beans, not the caffeine. They could drink organic coffee without issue.

George

I would get AF almost invariably after eating Chinese food - MSG laden

I don't get afib anymore, got ablated over 10 months ago. The hell with triggers now!!

I quit eating cooked carbohydrates and have not had a heart arrhythmia since.

Sleep apnea is an important cause of afib. It can trigger episodes during the night, when a person stops breathing, or the following day, according to my cardiologist. The body puts out a great amount of stress hormones to restart breathing, and those stress the heart. I had afib for 10 years before I knew I had sleep apnea. The episodes finally became unbearable last year and I was hospitalized four times for dangerous arrhythmias. I had to have a pacemaker implanted. I was frantic about pinpointing "triggers." I could not even have a few sips of wine without going into afib. I could not roll onto my left side without going into afib. Finally I underwent a somnogram and learned I had sleep apnea during REM cycles and dangerously low blood oxygen levels during REM. I started on CPAP therapy, and now my afib is gone. Nothing seems to trigger it! I'm only taking a small dose of metoprolol now, for blood pressure, and I hope to be off that soon.

John, when I was going through the worst of afib, I never found coffee to be a trigger for me. In fact, my afib would sometimes end while I drank coffee in the morning. And, contrary to popular opinion, coffee does not raise blood pressure and can even lower it, according to a recent reputable study. I'm talking about moderate use, of course.

Can't emphasize this enough: Sleep apnea is a basic cause of afib.

Hey, John.

Think the gist of your post is accurate:

"it seems difficult to assign "blame" to a particular food or drink."

/L

Thanks, George. Good response. It’s all about what makes us vulnerable. I'd like to elaborate further.

I agree about various potentials (commonly called “triggers”) for initiating the onset of AF or often just the PACs… in that it may be a systemic response to a food antigen or a chemical contaminant or toxin to which we are exposed or ingest. The result might be rapid or take days. A classic example would be where something provokes an inflammatory response which might be immediate or could take several days to build. Silent inflammation is a well-known trigger of AF. In a body that already has a continual load of silent inflammation running behind the scenes, a response might be much more rapid compared to a body with little or none. Irritated neurons flare more quickly by comparison.

Quite often, triggers are associated with unhealthy foods, beverages and habits so eliminating those has many other benefits besides eliminating the AF triggering effect. When triggers are deliberately ignored, other adverse health issues will continue to manifest….often, silently. That’s why we say Afib is like the canary in the coal mine… an alert that something is not right in the body and it’s causing the physical symptom of Afib or an early warning to clean up your act. Typically, it’s the lack of the alkalinizing minerals magnesium and potassium.

As was presented in the post Alkalinity, Healing, pH and Voltage – The Inside Story (April 2012), everyone and especially afibbers should be mindful that an acidic tissue pH enables vulnerability since that equates to low voltage or low heart energy which enables Afib and many other unfavorable health consequences. See [www.afibbers.org]

Maintaining a constant alkaline tissue status helps reduce the rapid irritation of nerve cells.

Jackie