Did Covid or vaccine accelerate my Afib?

I have been on a fast track with recent onset and diagnosis of Afib since May and set to do ablation in October.
I never had any tell tale signs of Covid and never got tested.
I was having heart palpitations after dinners and laying down.
After using a monitor for a week, I had one day of Afib. The following week I took my first vaccine and went to the hospital that night 3am with Ventriuclar Tachycardia and Bradycardia. This was what brought on my diagnosis. Monitor the next week starting on that day showed 5 days of Afib.

The next five weeks were some good days with more visits to the hospital at which point My cardio doctor discussed with EP and decided I was to go on Amiodorone with the intention of getting an ablation in about 3 months.

I mentioned the vaccine many times to each doctor, expecting a casual dismissal of "it's not related". But they always ghosted me and never gave a response at all as if my question was completely immaterial.

I'm fine with the ablation but, is this moving quickly in the right direction or not taking enough in possible context? Has anyone gotten a second opinion or changed doctors?

You were already experiencing afib, so the vaccine is ruled out as a cause of that. The v-tach and bradycardia following the vaccine is one of those "who knows?" things. Might have been related, might not. Probably no way to know, but it doesn't really matter now. It's really, really unlikely that COVID or the vaccine had anything to do with your afib.

Whether to do an ablation or not is a totally different question and from what little you've told us so far I'd say no way. Way too soon. But could you tell us more without all the vaccine stuff? How old are you, what gender, what other medical issues, what drugs, what country are you in, what state/province/region?

I think there are many different meds to try- although some start with ablation. I am only going to say that I went to three EPs in the past 2 months to get various opinions. And was glad I did .. mostly it solidified what I felt I should do, but it was good to have confirmation by a doc that it would be the same to go to another doc....(because that is where all my experience has been). It sounds like you could benefit from another opinion or two even outside the vaccine issue. (I do know of those that had rapid heart beats after the vaccine but as Carey says it sounds like it started before that.).

Hi Carey, sure some background.
I am 49 and male. They said I was a 0 on the Chad scale. I don't have any other medical issues. Although I was tested as having high cholesterol at the time of the diagnosis and having slowly been reducing it with diet in the past few months successfully.

I don't take any medications other than amio.I live in Asheville, NC.

The day of the EP's decison to put me on amio was a night at the hospital as they were trying to convert me. June 2nd
They had me on something to slow down my heart rate and it worked but my blood pressure was going down slightly so they took me off it
That night I wouldn't sleep as every time I started to my heart would jump and start to race.
They put me on metaprolol and after a half hour i went into sinus rhythm. My anxiety there was also very present.
I had only seen my cardiologist at that point and she talked to EP, who I had never seen at that point.

They decided on amio and ablation.

I had my 48th ecv yesterday. The Er dr suggested amio. I’m allergic to iodine. How are you doing on the drug? Why didn’t you try flecainide? Flecainide worked for 16 years for me.,

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susan.d
I had my 48th ecv yesterday. The Er dr suggested amio. I’m allergic to iodine. How are you doing on the drug? Why didn’t you try flecainide? Flecainide worked for 16 years for me.,

oh man Susan I am so sorry. .

re meds for OP, Flec didn't work for me but dofetilide worked for quite a few years...

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bettylou4488

I had my 48th ecv yesterday. The Er dr suggested amio. I’m allergic to iodine. How are you doing on the drug? Why didn’t you try flecainide? Flecainide worked for 16 years for me.,

oh man Susan I am so sorry. .

re meds for OP, Flec didn't work for me but dofetilide worked for quite a few years...

After the ecv I didn’t feel like my heart was calm. I was getting PAC’s and they discharged me too quickly. On the Lyft back home my STV returned to 145. Not as bad as 202 when I decided to Lyft to the Er. I didn’t know what to do when my STV returned because the hospital was completely out of beds-icu, pcu, telemetry, regular rooms. I heard they are packing admitted patients in the ER up to 1000 hours. I was stuck once fir two days in the Er ward. Must be they are at capacity due to covid19.

But I was finally lucky and self converted last night. I had it Friday as well (160s) but self converted in 5 minutes. I’m just dealing with the ecv skin burns now and hope I can stay in nsr.

Carey- what is a good Arrhythmia drug for STV? Sotolol or multaq? Metropol dropped my BP to 72/44 and I can’t take adenosine.

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susan.d
Carey- what is a good Arrhythmia drug for STV? Sotolol or multaq? Metropol dropped my BP to 72/44 and I can’t take adenosine.

The one that works best for you with the fewest side effects. Really, that's the only answer.

Multaq is very "mild" and works for some, but not many. Sotalol is more potent but also a beta blocker, so if metoprolol doesn't suit you well then sotalol probably won't either. There's flecainide, which I know you're familiar with and is off the table for you. Propafenone is flecainide's close cousin, so if flec doesn't work for you then propafenone won't either. Tikosyn (dofetilide) is effective for most people, but starting it requires a 3-day hospital stay and a fair number of people (especially women) can't take it. The last resort is amiodarone, which almost always works but comes with a long list of nasty side effects and requires monitoring. I'm not so sure that being allergic to iodine would preclude taking amio just because amio has an iodine atom. Remember, iodine is an essential element in your body that you can't live without. You might be allergic to some preparations of iodine, but you also would die without the substance itself.

Metoprolol is a rate control drug and not really an antiarrhythmic. Before anyone says it -- yes, I know it's categorized as a class II antiarrhythmic, but the only arrhythmia is suppresses is tachycardia. It doesn't prevent or stop SVT, afib, flutter, or much of anything other than a rapid heart rate. And as you found out, it's also an effective hypertension medication.

Thanks. I’m on multaq which isn’t working well. Sotalol I started in December in the hospital setting which was very successful with zero break through. I was put back on multaq after my last ablation. I prefer sotalol (their blessing to switch) but I looked up multaq website and it is recommended to stop multaq for 5-7 half lifes…12-17 hrs is its half life. This was concurred with fully stopping one arrhythmia drug by my local ep before starting sotalol again. Because I’m sensitive it was suggested to start in a hospital setting .With the Californian hospitals at capacity and zero beds, perhaps this isn’t the time to be without multaq for 3-5 days (plus weaning) if my 202hr returns when weaning/stopping multaq.

Another choice suggested is to stop multaq and go on a trial of verapamil and possibly digoxin and live with controlled afib and STV.

All I know is I can’t live with this high tachycardia and angina over and over again getting ecv. My burns are especially bad this time.

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susan.d
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Carey- what is a good Arrhythmia drug for STV? Sotolol or multaq? Metropol dropped my BP to 72/44 and I can’t take adenosine.

Hey Susan I am not Carey (and don't play him on TV) but what about dofetilide? you have to be in hosptial to get on it but it worked for quite a few years for me. maybe you have already tried that? I actually personally never tried Sotolol or Multaq for various reasons. just shooting this thought out there- you may have already used it. And are you on a rate lowering drug? I know a lot of people that live in control afib for awhile and are "ok" with it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2021 09:03AM by bettylou4488.

I got my second moderna shot on march 4 had my first afib march 24 then two april and may now 8-10 a month. I am very curious if anyone else has i am a 62 year old female