Afib at night

I've been tracking my episodes carefully since my diagnosis and the one common thread is time of day. Most of my episodes occur at night or in the early morning (9PM to 5:00AM), often when I am asleep or just before I get ready for bed. Any ideas? The episodes are not alcohol related. I mostly drink water and decaf tea during the day. Thanks for your ideas.

Sleeping position? Sleeping on my left side or even supine position oftentimes brings me ectopic beats, and then goes into the Afib.

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gethealthy6
IMost of my episodes occur at night or in the early morning (9PM to 5:00AM), often when I am asleep or just before I get ready for bed. Any ideas?

Sounds like a "vagal" trigger. See: [www.afibbers.org]

Basically folks with a vagal trigger get afib when relaxed, sleeping or eating. Not in the midst of vigorous activity.

I generally have a vagal trigger & my path to afib was chronic fitness. For me, relative afib remission has been accomplished by eliminating long duration high intensity exercise while remaining fit. The other piece for me was electrolyte repletion. When my electrolytes are more optimal, I'm much less likely to get afib even with common vagal triggers such as drinking a very cold drink.

As GeorgeN said, it's vagal. And it may be related to electrolyte imbalances and corrected accordingly. But it's not easy to identify what's wrong. And sometimes, there's nothing wrong.
Beware of stress. It's a strong disturber too.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2021 02:24PM by Pompon.

Thanks to everyone for the quick responses.

Welcome, Gethealthy6... An additional potential you might want to consider is low blood sugar levels or hypoglycemia. It's well known to cause a variety of symptoms. I had that.. and am not diabetic.

Remedy was to not go too long between meals...and also as preventive, eat a protein snack if the time between meals was going to be overly long. Plus other dietary practices. The other caveat is about how much glucose the most recent meal produces or converts to... and modifying your dietary intake of carbs and protein can manage that. The overnight length caused problems for me but the correct snack before bed fixed that. It didn't 'cure' my afib but it certainly delayed the eventual onset significantly. Worth a try for you.

There are many reports on hypoglycemia. Here's a brief but descriptive example..
[www.mayoclinic.org]

And this one.... Dr. Alan Gaby has dedicated a chapter to reactive hypoglycemia in his excellent book “Nutritional Medicine,” and he discusses how if the blood glucose levels fall too rapidly then the body compensates by releasing adrenaline, as well as other compounds which raise the blood glucose levels. This in turn results in “fight or flight” symptoms such as anxiety, panic attacks, hunger, palpitations, tachycardia, tremors, sweating, and even abdominal pain. Dr. Gaby also talks about the symptoms presented when the blood glucose levels fall slowly over a period of hours, as this can lead to symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, blurred vision, mental confusion, impaired memory, and even seizures. These symptoms usually are worse before meals, and frequently are relieved by eating.
[www.naturalendocrinesolutions.com]

Jackie

It’s the same for me. When I do get the occasional a-fib, it’s always when I’m resting. When I’m moving about and awake during the day, I’m fine, If I sit in my easy chair for a few hours, sometimes all of a sudden I get an ectopic session for a few minutes then it goes away. I wish I was 21 again when I never had any of these issues.