GI changes during Afib?

Readers post about the “big pee” when getting afib, is it typical to get colonoscopy prep type diarrhea dumps during flutter? It’s still a fluid dump to lessen the amount of fluid the heart has to pump.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2022 03:12AM by susan.d.

No. Something else is going on.

Really? Each and every time now I get it the past few months. I thought my heart was trying to flush out liquid to lessen stress.

here is what I just read and have heard before..(this is a cardiologist saying this.)

This is a well known (but not very common) symptom. The atrium is irritated by the AF and secretes a hormone which then acts on the kidneys, stimulating them to produce more urine.

from here :

[www.healthshare.com.au]

1st hour in AFib can make me pee every 15-20 min. It's more quiet during the second hour, when my episode is that long (which is rare).

Urine yes, diarrhea no. Afib causes the atria to produce atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), which in turn signals the kidneys to excrete more urine. But diarrhea isn't part of that process and isn't how the body regulates water. Maybe you tend to get diarrhea during an episode, but I don't know why and that's not your body intentionally trying to dump water.

I don't know that it might tend to be sex related, but my own sister-in-law has AF, and it seems to bother her more at night, often waking her. She must get up to void at least twice over the next 30 minutes, so it kinda wrecks her night.

I'm male, and my symptoms are pressure in the chest wall in the two seconds prior to the onset, but I also tend to sweat more from my scalp. Urine does not figure with me, or hasn't yet, put it that way.

I always pee a lot during AF And flutter. Probably every 10 minutes. But never diarrhoea.

I had this happen once. I honestly peed more than a gallon in about 10 minutes. It was uncanny. Just kept thinking I was done, walked away and went right back to peeing again. it was terrifying when it happened.

I've sometimes wondered where my body could have stocked so much liquid.
My reasoning being that my body was trying to get rid of some toxic substance, I once tried to drink a lot of water to help. Bad idea. It did not shorten my afib episode, but increased my need to pee.

Well,I maybe unique to this forum in getting the runs ONLY upon the onset of high tachycardia flutter, I’m not alone in the real world.

[journals.sagepub.com]

I found a lot of articles on this subject linking gastrointestinal changes related to cardiac episodes.

[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
“ However, while literature documenting cardiovascular comorbidities is plentiful, less attention has been given to the prevalence and impact of gastrointestinal (GI) conditions such as dyspepsia, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), peptic ulcer diseases, and GI bleeding in patients with AF“

That would explain my GI bleed in February when I was getting afib every two days and GERD.

Another link not included in this post explains a drop in O2 can trigger GI issues. I do get a temporary drop in my O2.
“Your digestive system usually gets between 20-25% of the oxygenated blood pumped by the heart, with this amount doubling after you eat and your body needs to work to digest the meal. Unfortunately, if your heart isn’t able to send enough blood to your stomach, it can cause severe issues – from sharp abdominal pain to diarrhea, nausea or vomiting after a meal.”

I mainly constipation but within 10-20 minutes of flutter I get diarrhea. These links explained them well. I am discounting the Crohn’s disease connection. Although I have Crohn’s disease, it’s been in remission for decades, proof by routine endoscopy and colonoscopies. So unlike afib that suddenly appears and retreats back into remission, Crohn’s doesn’t work like that. My recent scopes were during marathons of arrhythmias and my biopsies were Crohn’s free as well as visual inspection.

I woke up lazily in bed this morning waiting for an alarm 20 minutes later to take my Sotalol. Still laying in bed in nsr —IWatch showed pacing @55 nsr, I immediately went into flutter. It wasn’t caused by any triggers or anxiety. I’m anxiety immune lately after all my episodes thinking “ here it goes again”, like it’s part of my daily routine like brushing my teeth. My last pacemaker interrogation showed 164 episodes in 52 days.

Regarding triggers? Nah..I don’t bother thinking what I did to get it again. I was just half asleep not moving. Then diarrhea and angina and shortness of breath from the tachycardia, which was unusually high today. I did my tricks and luckily converted quickly in 15 minutes, not like the horrible 29.5 hours of flutter I encountered 3 days prior which was pure hell.

Then 8-10 minutes later my flutter returned along with runs again after hydrating myself and taking my Sotalol and a needed .4 nitro patch and reading a book.