***Update*** Re: New to Afib and requesting high Potassium advice

Good afternoon, wanted to give an update on things since my original post in early October 2021. First, much thanks to everyone who responded both via this thread and via messages directly to me. Valuable information abounded.

In early October I took some advice I received here and did indeed switch meals from one large meal daily between 6:00pm-8:00pm to three smaller daily meals with the last being @ 6:00pm. I also restarted magnesium supplementation twice daily up to gut tolerance. Started cutting back on the number of mountain biking sessions per week and took longer breaks during those sessions, albeit not as much I should have.

Had my echocardiogram in October and it showed no issues (thank God) with valves, size or functioning. As a matter of fact, it showed an overall increase of 10% in my Ejection Fraction from two years ago, which was already in the normal range. I guess all the increased mountain biking did improve the plumbing but am thinking at the cost of some electrical circuitry. Since I changed the diet and reduced training, I have only had 2 episodes in the past two months. At my annual Cardiology appointment in mid-November, she was encouraged by the improvement but, since I have no real symptoms during episodes, wanted me to wear another ZioPatch round to see if anything was happening that I wasn’t detecting with my own physical feeling, especially during the night while asleep. She has also scheduled me with an EP to review the results of all of this in early January. I am currently at the end of week 1 of wearing the ZioPatch. I know of no issues so far, but we’ll see when the report comes back from iRythm.

So, I went from 3 to 4 episodes per month (and sometimes 2 weekly) to now 2 in two months. Not naïve enough to celebrate because I have NO doubt it will recur. However, maybe I am heading in the right direction. Simply to note, the 2 most recent episodes were, in both cases, I think because I started feeling ballsy again and slipped back into too many MTB sessions. Am reducing ALL training back to Zone 2 or less with less frequency indefinitely going forward. I really enjoy training hard, but this stuff is way too scary to taunt. MUCH thanks to George for all the input on over-training. I KNOW that has been a major factor for me.

One interesting (to me anyway) sidenote is that these last 2 episodes were resolved in under 90 minutes by the following protocol: Once I noticed the episodes, I chewed 0.1mg Catapres, 81mg aspirin, and 0.5mg Xanax. Resolving in less than 90 minutes is new for me. I had read about the aspirin and Xanax in two separate other posts on this forum back in October and made a note of them. The Catapres was prescribed for me @ 7 years ago when I was switching from Lisinopril to Telmisartan for better BP control. Doctor told me to monitor my BP for a week when I switched and to take a Catapres if my BP went over 140/90 and stayed there or my HR went over 90 and stayed there. Anyway, that’s where the idea came from. I never needed to take it during the med switch but I kept the bottle of tabs all these years just in case. Maybe just a coincidence but I’ll certainly try it again when a future episode occurs.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas season and a very NSR New Year.

Mark,

Great report!

The one thing I know I can do to cause an episode is to train/ski/bike or whatever at too hard an exertion level for too long. Everyone has to find their own limits. I think Zone 2 is pretty safe for many. One of the things I work on optimizing is blood sugar. Exercise at a Z2 level will open up GLUT 4 pathways for glucose intake into the cells without insulin. I've found that even 15 minutes of exercise at this level will generally bring my serum glucose into the 80's (mg/dL) immediately. If I do this after my evening meal, it usually sets me up for a morning fasting glucose in the 80's also (I'm not diabetic, just doing this for optimal health).

More intense exercise typically results in increased serum glucose as the liver responds to the stress by releasing glycogen. In my simple way of thinking, this is indicative of the low stress incurred by the body at the Z2 level.

George,

Thank you for the response. You may have just hit upon an anomaly I have experienced for many years.

For the past 20 years with weightlifting and mountain biking I have tried almost every type of diet that comes along and some I have made up myself. Not really trying lose weight. Mostly trying to gain muscle mass and/or change body mass composition and improve strength/performance both aerobically and anaerobically. It seems no matter what I eat or don't eat, no matter how long I fast beforehand (12 hrs up to 24 hrs) my fasting glucose is always between 102 and 110. I'm not diabetic either but do monitor A1C for health reasons.

Extreme overtraining would be a definite common denominator all these years in that except for being sick with a cold virus or mountain biking crash surgery recoveries, I never really back off or take breaks. Never have. Maybe that is why my level is always above norm.

Thx & take care.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/2021 04:06PM by MarkL.