Hydrocodone

I just had sinus surgery this morning (septoplasty and bilateral turbinate reduction). The nurse gave me 10mg/500 mg hydrocodone/acetomeniphen in recovery. Now I'm laying in bed and got some scary arrhythmia when shifting onto my left side. Let's call it a PAC storm bordering on full-blown AF. Subsiding now.

Is it likely that the opiates are to blame? Anyone have a similar experience? I can switch to regular Tylenol and just deal with pain. I'd rather hurt than go into AF.

AlveCor showed some slight morphological changes in the EKG. I actually saw some S-waves, which I normally never see due to benign early repolarization (BER) that is a side effect of endurance running. 3 hours later they are gone. So I take that as pretty darning evidence that something temporarily altered the conduction in my heart. Either Hypokalemia induced by the surgical procure, the narcotic effect of Hydrocodone, or both.

In any case, the bacteria in my septic tank are now high on Percocet, the doctors office has been informed in writing that the medication is on the you-know-what list, and I'm carpet bombing my gut with potassium, magnesium, and taurine. And now I'm feeling fine. Might even have a beer later. Can't be worse than the narcs!

Stay healthy everyone.

Just a Heads up Wolfpack to be careful of reading too fine a point into ALivecor single lead EKG strips. Its a handy tool for sure for on the Fly AFIB detection, but it doesn't provide the finer degree of resolution that a gold standard 12 lead EKG does, and very often added noise and artifacts found in the single-lead Alivecor (now called Kardia) may masquerade as looking like a type of complex EKG when it is not at all what it might appear to be.

The device is quite good at detecting suspected AFIB and also catching PVC and PAC as well as NSR. A discriminating eye can often pick up atrial flutter as well but that is less robust than the AFIB detection that has a built-in algorithm for detection.

Thus, I would be very cautious of reading into any squiggles that may appear something similar to "slight morphological changes" based only on the Alivecors admittedly limited resolution single lead EKG. and thereby making assumptions about some possible underlying cardiac anomaly by trying to compare what may actually be some added noise or artifacts with what might look generally similar to a rhythm pattern possibly seen in a 12 lead EKG book.

Be well Wolfpack!
Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2016 02:20AM by Shannon.

Good point, Shannon. Might've been the drugs talking!

In any case, I submit my own experience as a cautionary tale for fellow vagal AF-ers. Getting "mellow" on synthetic opioids was a disaster for me. Yet another reason to hate those things.