Anxiety

Does anybody still get anxious with any little episodes of arrhythmia they have, I’m 5 years out from my ablation, first two years were amazing, although I’d only had one maybe two short episodes, the anxiety of it played on my mind, after the ablation it was as if I didn’t care, I started running again, completeting a couple of 10kms races, lost a lot of weight and life was great, then out of nowhere I had the hospital kind of mess up the findings of a holter I’d work, and rushed me in for a cardiac mri, which was fine, then when they questioned my monitor it was wrong somehow🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️.

Since then I’ve had nothing but episodes of pvcs, and lately atrial tachycardia for around 7-10 beats, which scares the life out of me..... I went for a run today and five mins in felt the odd missed beats then next thing you know light headed for around 10 secs or so, felt pulse, steady rhythm with missed beats, anxiety took over and walked back home...... it’s put me off exercising now..... anyone else suffer this awful fear and anxiety

2.5 years out a suc. Ablation.......I still get some bursts when i 1st go to bed and move to my right side that last from a few seconds to near a min. and 2-3 times a month i have 3-5 seconds worth of ARR. while not in bed along with a few dozen spaced out pac's a month.
No worries from me though as the EP cannot fix the source/cause of our malady....so that will always be with us.....but they can cut the connection point to nullify the path to a full blown ARR....that's what i always remind myself of during these little episodes " it can't connect it can't connect" so little bursts cause me no anxiety at all at this point....now if they become more freq. and i have a breakthrough of more than a minute ARR. to hours worth of that hell on earth (if that ever happens again) that's when ANXIETY to say the least will be big time. After near 5 years of on and off hell.....a few seconds here and there are a walk in the park.

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Juggsy75
then out of nowhere I had the hospital kind of mess up the findings of a holter I’d work, and rushed me in for a cardiac mri, which was fine, then when they questioned my monitor it was wrong somehow🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️.

Can you explain again what happened? I don't understand this. After two years of continuous normal rhythm, a sudden onset of lots of ectopics and tachy episodes isn't expected.

I’d worn a monitor, then out of the blue had a phone call saying they’d seen nsvt so I needed an Mei, told me a footballer (uk) had died of it suddenly and it was super serious.... had the mri and all was normal, I then saw Sabine Ernst who questioned me that the reason they’d called me was due to me pressing the button on the monitor to record it, the thing is, I hadn’t, I didn’t even know the monitor had a button, at this point she rolled her eyes and said then it’s nothing, just artifact ... so I’m now constantly convinced any tachycardia is VT related.........when I say I’m having a lot, it feels a lot to me, but my results from 7 day monitor last week were

Atrial ectopic burden 0.03%
Ventricular ectopic burden 1.8% down from 2.6 6 months ago

Letter said I’ve had no sustained arrhythmia since ablation, however I don’t recall having any of these tachy runs or this amount of pvcs until the mri episode



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2021 05:23PM by Juggsy75.

I assure you there's no way anybody mistook v-tach for an atrial arrhythmia, and if anyone did see VT you'd have an implanted defibrillator right now.

Your tachycardia is not VT related, nor is it related to that MRI. It just isn't. Go back to running and doing the things you enjoy knowing you're in no danger. The PVCs (if that's what they are -- more likely PACs) and those brief runs of tachycardia aren't going to do you any harm. But if they really bother you, talk to your EP about giving you something to tame them.

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Carey
I assure you there's no way anybody mistook v-tach for an atrial arrhythmia, and if anyone did see VT you'd have an implanted defibrillator right now.

Your tachycardia is not VT related, nor is it related to that MRI. It just isn't. Go back to running and doing the things you enjoy knowing you're in no danger. The PVCs (if that's what they are -- more likely PACs) and those brief runs of tachycardia aren't going to do you any harm. But if they really bother you, talk to your EP about giving you something to tame them.

I was told brief runs of nsvt without any structural abnormalities don’t always require a defibrillator, hence the mri to check this, I just find it strange how they can be sure of one thing one moment then completely discount it the next......I definitely have more pvcs than pacs, I’ve seen it on my kardia, the dr said I could go back to taking 1.25m bisoprolol if I wanted to

I meant you'd have an ICD now if they had seen sustained runs of v-tach. You're right that NSVT doesn't usually require an ICD, but I'm skeptical you've experienced VT of any sort. Why do you think you have?

As for why the change of mind, I would assume someone misinterpreted a result and got all excited before someone else reviewed it and calmed them down. You're dealing with people so mistakes are to be expected. You just hope they get caught and corrected like this one did.

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Carey
I meant you'd have an ICD now if they had seen sustained runs of v-tach. You're right that NSVT doesn't usually require an ICD, but I'm skeptical you've experienced VT of any sort. Why do you think you have?

As for why the change of mind, I would assume someone misinterpreted a result and got all excited before someone else reviewed it and calmed them down. You're dealing with people so mistakes are to be expected. You just hope they get caught and corrected like this one did.

I think the way it was handled has made me fear the VT now, every little run of tachycardia I have has me panicking about of it is or isn’t,

Until someone obtains a recording demonstrating sustained VT, there's absolutely no reason for you to fear it. There's no way to get from where you were to some sort of stealth VT that nobody can see. That's not a real thing that happens.

This is a mental thing you need to work out, not a medical problem, but it's having the same effects on your life as a medical problem so you might want to treat it that way and get some help dealing with it.

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Carey
I meant you'd have an ICD now if they had seen sustained runs of v-tach. You're right that NSVT doesn't usually require an ICD, but I'm skeptical you've experienced VT of any sort. Why do you think you have?

As for why the change of mind, I would assume someone misinterpreted a result and got all excited before someone else reviewed it and calmed them down. You're dealing with people so mistakes are to be expected. You just hope they get caught and corrected like this one did.

This is also the crux of my anxiety since afib diagnosis, I’m constantly worrying about it, my thoughts are now that the pvcs and tachy are now a different issue I have with my heart that I never had before, so I’m constantly googling and questioning it, I’d say the stress and worry are worse than the condition, I’ve become somewhat of a recluse with it

Juggsy,

I had afib for 11 years before my first ablation with over 300 episodes and rarely visited my DR. The first five years, I was misdiagnosed and didn't know that I was having bouts of afib, so I took no medication, then diagnosed and on meds for the last 6 years. I was and still am very fit and the afib was an inconvenience. I didn't workout or go for a run when in afib, but everything else was normal. I am 75 now and doing well after my second ablation. Relax, no need to worry.

Thank you for the reassuring words

I've been there with all of that anxiety. My AF most of the time would come on in the middle of the night while I was sleeping, so it got to the point where I'd be afraid to go to sleep at night. Then I discovered that MSG could trigger me, so I became afraid to eat ANYTHING that might have it. So that meant I basically only ate what I cooked, since I knew what was in it. I had AF after drinking caffeine and after having a margarita, so No more alcohol or coffee. This backed me into such a corner. I was afraid of EVERYTHING, with an underlying fear of AF at all times. They say Afib begets Afib, meaning, that the more time your heart spends out of rhythm, the easier it is for it to stay that way, or go back into AF from normal. But I think I have another explanation. Magnesium. If Mg is required for every muscle contraction, then the heart must burn through a ton of it when in AF. Stress and anxiety can be alleviated with magnesium, but you have to beef up your magnesium stores by taking a supplement, apply it topically to skin at least twice a day and maybe even get Mg IV therapy. There's a wonderful article on magnesium on the new afibbers.org regular website. It takes YEARS to rebuild our depleted magnesium stores, but I can say that as I am slowly building up, I notice that I am less anxious and am definitely sleeping better. ( I also avoid stress whenever possible, took up meditation and yoga and have a wonderful custom made hypnosis recording to listen to. It relaxes me so much every time that it's even helped me convert more than once. The hypnotist will say whatever suggestions you want to plant into your subconcious. If you haven't read "Magnificent Magnesium" by Dr. Dennis Goodman, or even more detailed is "The Magnesium Miracle" by Dr. Carolyn Dean, (don't buy her ReMag, there's lead in it) those are "must read " books. It seems like a lot of us afibbers are atheltic type people and burn through our magnesium stores ratherr quickly. If you want any more info on any of this, feel free to PM me. Best wishes to you! I feel your pain! Anxiety about AF is almost as bad as AF itself! Breath deep through nose only! lots of techniques on that... George N knows.... That helps too. So many ways to work on this.

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Juggsy75
... I went for a run today and five mins in felt the odd missed beats then next thing you know light headed for around 10 secs

Happens to me all the time. Never stopped running. Not dead yet, either.

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wolfpack
... I went for a run today and five mins in felt the odd missed beats then next thing you know light headed for around 10 secs

Happens to me all the time. Never stopped running. Not dead yet, either.

Dosent half scare me though.....

Talking about anxiety...I was getting ecv every 18 days and the past two ecvs for very high STV tachycardia/flutter were 2@ 4 days apart. Today I started weaning off of sotolol for my upcoming ablation. I’m due for another Er if history repeats itself and since the weaning perhaps more so. I feel awful today. I was couch bound to avoid my triggers of bending over and decided to take a very slow walk in my backyard. I feel worn out in nsr doing so but STV/flutter is so unpredictable so I’m on edge this upcoming weekend. I hope I’ll be ok until at least Sunday afternoon when I check into the local hotel to be near the ER.

The plan is no ecv the week before the ablation and if I am in another high violent tachycardia, i may be admitted with rate drugs. I have a crash hr history (24HR after the B so I need to be monitored because my baseline is mid 40s hr. I just need to get through the week.