ablation vs ginger

I read am article written about treating afib with ginger. It was written by " george n " george talkd about useing 1/2 tsp. In morning and 1 tsp. At nite. He claims that in time the ginger was able to control his afib and was able to get off his flecainide. I need to know how he took it. Was it mixed with something to drink or was it mixed with food. George n would you please or will someone let me know!! I have had afib sense 1988 but was mainly flutters until 2 years ago when it turened into full afib that would last from 20 minutes to 6 hours. I took 200 mg flecainide each day which worked welli doctor said drugs would fail over time. Well i had 4 attacts in the last 30 days. Now my doctor is tslking ablation. This really scares me. If anyone can answer my question about how to use ginger,i would like to try it. So george n, if you readthis please reply. John.hines2013@gmail.com.. thank you

Hi John,

Here is my most recent post <[www.afibbers.org]
Others <[www.afibbers.org]
<[www.afibbers.org]

Colin also has successfully used ginger. Here is a search on his ginger posts: <[www.afibbers.org]

Basically, I started taking powered organic ginger spice. I started big - like 1 tablespoon before bed and later titrated down to like 1 tsp. As mentioned in one of the links, I'd only used flec PIP or on-demand. My afib started flaring to the point of having 4 early morning episodes in one week. I still used PIP fled to convert in an hour or two. I started using flec, 200 mg before bed (since I usually only get early morning episodes). This worked to keep me in rhythm. I then started very slowly titrating the flec dose down. I also added in the ginger at night and in the morning. This allowed me to titrate the flec to 0 over about a month's time. Using only ginger, I had about 1 episode per month. Later I determined that my stress eating of a wheel of brie cheese a day was adding a material amount of calcium to my diet. Quitting the cheese returned my control to excellent.

Through all of this, I continued my electrolyte supplement program. Magnesium to bowel tolerance (3-5 g/day for me), 1 g potassium as citrate and 4 g taurine. All taken in divided doses 2x/day.


I wrote the following for Hans & he put it in The Afib Report:

Ginger may be beneficial for vagal afibbers.

A quick summary of my afib history. Afib started about 8 1/2 years ago, at age 49, most likely brought on by chronic fitness. It was always a vagal trigger, mostly coming on in the early morning around 3AM. Initially I had episodes every 10-14 days for 6-9 hours. They were self-converting or with exercise. After 2 months, afib progressed to a persistent episode that lasted 2.5 months. This was converted with a loading dose (300 mg) of flecainide. I started a supplement program including potassium, magnesium and taurine. Initially around 2 g/day K+, 800 mg/day Mg++ and 4g/day taurine. This has varied over time, with Mg generally increasing to as much as 3 g/day (always to bowel tolerance). Whenever this failed, I used 300 mg flec to convert, usually in an hour or less. Over 7 years, I used about 10 doses of flec. I consider these supplements foundational for my afib remission program. I had a great increase in personal stress starting a year ago. This coincided with a great increase in afib frequency. This culminated a little over 2 months ago with nightly (mostly 3AM) episodes terminated with 300 mg flec. The conversion time increased to from 1 to 4 hours.

Along with the increase in afib frequency, this last year saw relatively frequent excessive vagal responses to 1) cold food or drink, 2) laying down and 3) the aftermath of sexual orgasm. These excessive vagal responses included a slow heart beat of around 40 BPM, sometimes accompanied with a significant number of ectopic beats and sometimes afib.

The nightly episodes were distressing and I thought I’d soon be booking an ablation. I decided to try the vagolytic med propatheline bromide (PB ). There are several papers by James Reiffle MD that refer to this approach. I reasoned if I could stop the excessive vagal responses, I could preempt my afib. I convinced my cardiologist to support this effort, however, as PB is little used it would take some days to fill the prescription. While waiting for the script to fill, I decided to use flec before bed to see if I could preempt the afib. Flec also has vagolytic properties. I successfully started with 300 mg and after one night dropped this to 200. I began slowly and successfully titrating downward. Periodically I would still notice abnormal vagal responses. I would treat these with more flec.

After reading Hans' recent posting on ginger, I started taking a heaping dinner spoon of organic powdered ginger 2x/day, which I later reduced to 1/2 teaspoon ginger in the morning and 1 tsp in the evening. The abnormal vagal responses with their ectopic beats ceased immediately.

This gave me the confidence to tirate the flec downward much more quickly. Ultimately, I stopped it altogether. I quit taking the flec altogether about 6 weeks ago. With the exception of one afib episode the early morning after I pigged out on carbs at a Christmas meal, I have been afib free since starting the prophylactic flec and this has continued on the ginger. In my analysis the vagolytic quality of the flec was at least partially responsible for my success using it prophylactically. This has been perhaps replaced with the vagolytic quality of the ginger - a much better answer, in my book!

My biggest challenge to this routine is the aftermath of orgasm, in the morning10-12 hours after taking the ginger. This can lead to a slow heart and ectopics, but has yet to lead to afib, on the ginger. Orgasm a few hours after taking the ginger does not lead to ectopics. I can feel a very stable steady heart beat. The obvious answer is ginger on the nightstand.

I will also sample my radial pulse after getting in bed. The other evening, one out of every 30 beats was premature or a "skipped" beat. I got up and took 1/2 tsp of ginger. I sampled my hear for 120 beats with no premature beats. Early in my afib career, the one out of thirty ectopic frequency would presage afib during sleep.

I think ginger certainly has potential for vagal afibbers. I am unaware of any negative side effects, in my case, or in the literature. One note of caution, I understand that ginger has blood thinning properties, so those on blood thinners should investigate this further before using ginger.

I've continued with my supplement program throughout.

John, let me know if you have other questions.

George

Yes george i understand the amount. Of ginger you took. But i need to know how did you deliver it.was. it mixed in a drink or was it mixed with food. Or can i get in capsule form.

John,

Others have used capsules. I just put the powder in my mouth and swallow with some water. It has a bit of a kick, but I don't mind.

George

Hi John,

Try taking one capsule of Ginger Root Extract (NOW Foods - 250 mg) with each meal, you can get it from the the vitamin shop. Just click onto VITAMIN at the top of page.
I hope it helps you as it has for me, although I suspect your heart may be too far remodelled for ginger to work well.

Colin

It may be no remodelling or little has taken place though as jahines53 only has had PAF for 2 years and it was terminated each time. I had the same situation to some extent, PAF for a few years and it was only during the year preceding the ablation that I used Flec. I had no remodelling going on according to my EP. So while ablation might be a scary prospect, it might be wise to at least consider it, before there is any remodelling from here on out.. just my 2c

While remodelling is common with time, my history was 8 years of afib that became nearly persistent in the last year prior to my first ablation in 2003 supporting the fact that not every afibber will have remodelling as time goes on. It makes sense to try the ginger and the core nutrients in The Strategy ... especially optimizing IC magnesium before signing up for an ablation. Keeping the inflammatory process minimized helps on many levels so the ginger as well as curcumin and Omega 3 essential fatty acids offer great natural aids.

Jackie