New to AFib

Hi everyone, I am newly diagnosed with a-fib on June 29th and to be honest, I am scared to death because I feel so alone and no one in my family understands what I am going thru. My heart rate got to over 200 beats per minute and the ambulance had to come and pick me up and take me to the hospital. I had never felt anything like this before but have been having palpitations for the last year or so. Wore two different holter monitors during that year, 2 ekg's done that were normal, echocardiogram that was normal, and a ct scan of my heart that came back normal. 2 weeks later, I was admitted into the hospital and diagnosed with Afib. They gave me several meds in the hospital and even an electrical cardioversion that put me in a regular rhythm. Only for my heart to go back to irregular 3 days later. The doctor has put me on warfarin and metoprolol (50mg) 3 times a day. But for some reason, I cannot help but think that something is still wrong and I am driving myself crazy by constantly thinking about it. I'm freaking out that I am going to end up having a heart attack or a stroke. I've been having this jaw pain in my joints and feel like I am carrying something heavy on my shoulders that comes and goes. I know a major part of those feelings have to do with anxiety, but did anyone else experience this? I'm only 36 years old and don't know why this is all happening.

Hello Robert,
Ouch! It's hard for me to answer because I'm new to afib (Feb 2016), in chronic afib, which is not your case, and new to this forum, but since I seem to be the first to see your post, please consider that the first thing I was told, as many others were also, is that afib is *not* life threatening. Please keep calm, sit tight, and wait for a whole bunch of very very well informed people to come along and give you lots of wonderful advice and welcoming to this incredible place.
Stay well,
ginny

Welcome Robert,

Sorry to see you had to seek us out in the first place, but very glad you found the right place so early in your adventure with AFIB. And good advice Ginny51! The first step is to breath easy and understand this is a big picture long haul issue that is not at all likely to kill you, certainly not directly and over some period of time all the sage advice you will find here including the paramount importance of both rechecking all of the possible life-style risk factor issues that might be driving your AFIB at this relatively young age, reading. digesting and implementing The Strategy protocol of key heart calming electro-lyte repletion to see if this might help arrest progression of the condition early in the game. And the vital importance of doing your own due diligence in seeking out and pairing up with a very experience EP to be your front line treatment connection. This last point is truly critical, if and when, an expert ablation process might be your next best option, but that is premature at the moment.

Lets take things step by step. Im sure a good number of other long term road-warriors while chip in soon to bring you up to speed and into the fold, so no worries at all Robert .. we have all been there and done that and all of us fully understand the fear and anxiety that is endemic to AFIB, especially in the early days when at first that reptilian survival instinct kicks in with anything going haywire with our formally absent heart beat for the most part.

You will be fine and so many of us here truly envy the good fortune you and Ginny have at discovering this little Oasis in the online AFIB universe where the best and most in-depth truly integrative advice of both the best of natural self-health steps you can bring to your life and the best options in Electrophysiology with great guideline of when and how to incorporate both phase into your life to minimize the ultimate duration of your AFIB experience and maximize your life time spent in blessed NSR!\

So kick back, relax and read away, search our archives for answers as questions arise and ask them online when you can't find ready answers already freely given here over the years..

Best wishes and welcome Robert!

Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2016 12:53PM by Shannon.

Robert,
Like you my afib started at 36 Im 54 now. Still alive even tho many many times I would have bet Id croaked by now. You will someday die but not from Afib. It is very distressing and a total mind $%#& !! This disease triggers your mind into believing something terrible is happening. I get it. Even after all these years my initial response is a slight panic quickly diffusing to Oh Hell here I go again. Early on I would panic every time. Like Shannon says read all you can on here, There is so much useful info and this site will prove you are not alone. Your family will NOT ever totally understand. Even now my Mom blows my episodes off as "Its just your nerves". Seek the best EP you can find for optimum help dealing.

Tim

Thank you so much for the encouragement Ginny, Shannon, and Tim! I have a question that maybe you guys can help me with? I have my first appointment with my cardiologist coming up on the 26th of July. What kind of questions should I ask her and what should I be looking for in this first appointment? This will be my first appointment since being diagnosed with afib and having an electrical cardioversion.

I would focus 1st on controlling your your Heart rate. That is what the Metropolol is for. What was your Heart rate when it beat normally before you got the AFIB? And what is your Heart Rate now in AFIB? You'll feel better if you can get your HR down close to what your NSR HR was. Your risk of Stroke is probably very low, that is what the Warfarin is for, to prevent Stroke.
Have you had an Echocardiogram? That will tell you alot as far as if there is much to worry about.

Tell the EP Dr. about any side effects from the Metropolol you may be having. That can be adjusted, or another similar drugs used in its place.

What do you mean by this "Jaw Pain"?

Finally relax, you may go back into NSR on your own, and it is more likely to happen, if you are not stressed out about the situation.

Hi there Rob,

My Afib started more or less the same age. Some basic tips:

Try and be 'cool' about it, as difficult as that seems. No matter what impulses you sometimes get of "I've had enough of this!" experience shows a level head is always best.

Remain hopeful that you might get lucky and the Afib goes away of its own accord, but be equally prepared that it doesn't. Who can tell.

Take things in the early stages a measured step at a time.

Over time read posts that interest you in this forum to gradually become familiar with Afib and the manner people deal with it. Becoming informed will help you to navigate through the maze.

Try and evaluate your overall health and improve on that if possible. A well balanced diet and digestion and body weight can only help, but make any changes gradually and with guidance.

You may discover what triggers you into Afib. Eliminating the triggers helps reduce the number of episodes but likely won't eliminate the episodes entirely.

Stress is not helpful with Afib. I found acupuncture (from a well experienced practitioner) lowers stress and won't conflict with pharmaceutics.

The heart actually has neurons and they're firing off messages to the brain making you freak out. The brain has to take the lead and provide the heart reassurance. You have to learn to tango with the heart to help it through this.

Robert,
The main most important question to her or anyone is who is the most available and best EP heart doc for you?
Just note that a regular cardiologist, fam doc, nurses etc may understand the basics of afib but not totally understand all the intricate details. I just recently was versed by a friend who is a nurse practitioner at a hospital setting about afib. She had NO idea what she was talking about!! only knew the basics (stroke risks etc). So find someone who knows!! On the other hand I had a cardiologist at the beginning who was very good helped me get help and knew his level of knowledge on the subject.

Robert,
I second what Phill says about acupuncture. In case you are not familiar with it, I found that at first it seemed expensive for those first results and apparently unrelated to the issue of afib. It did prove essential though as it was the only thing I could do in a clear and positive direction. I needed at that point, waiting, between a first appointment, the first shock, and then waiting for results of tests and then a second disappointing appointment and so on, to find a "place" to feel safe in and to be able to go back to on a regular basis even if apparently unrelated to the hard facts of afib. It proved something I could do without having to worry or fret about or ask permission to do, so to speak, from some "white coat".
There is a pretty clear relation between some of what I've seen in acupuncture, in the area of alignment of the spine, and the "vagal" variety of the off-on version of afib.

Hi Anti-Fib,
so my heart rate before I had my first episode of A-Fib was sitting around 100 and would be around 85 to 90 at resting. It would jump to about 115 if I got up to just walk from my room to the living room. It was ridiculous :/ But now, my heart rate stays around 60 to 70 bpm. I can go walk for about a mile or two, come back inside, and it gets to about 75 bpm. So its weird and strange to me lol. The meds, (metoprolol) give me some side effects that I think my body is still trying to adjust to, so I've been trying to give it some time. I get dizzy sometimes and a little light headed, but nothing too serious. I've been trying to tell myself to not worry about every single little thing that I feel, because right now, my mind thinks the worst about everything. "Oh my gosh, what does that feeling mean, it's a heart attack symptom!" its a vicious, vicious cycle. But, the good news is, I have stayed off of Google today, and that's a start! I've only been up for about 8 hours, but still! The jaw pain, I found out was from a bacteria infection in my mouth after I went to the doctor and they prescribed me some amoxicillin for it. Thank you again for taking the time out of your day to respond to a post of mine

Sounds like you might need to reduce your Metropolol dosage. I would discuss the rate issue as a priority with the Cardiologist. Make sure he knows what you were at prior to having AFIB.

At this point its not worth your time/energy to worry much about this, if all that is going on is AFIB. Just get into to see the Cardiologist as soon as you can, to verify this.