My Atrial fibrillation journey

I am writing this post in case it is useful.
I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advise. This is just my personal journey with atrial fibrillation.

I first had atrial fibrillation about five years ago (I was around 55) and unfortunately it was not paroxysmal. I was stuck in AF for months on bisoprolol beta blocker until I had my first cardioversion to put my heart back into rhythm. This only lasted 24 hours and I returned to my previous afib state of about 150 - 180 bpm.

I was badly depressed as I was a very fit person (Or so I thought) before the atrial fibrillation with an average resting heart rate of 55 bpm. I had been a professional drummer and had kept extremely fit since I was 16.
My cardiologist suggested an antiarrhythmic medication, which after a number of days brought my heart back into rhythm, but it was being held there in a very clunky artificial way and would quite often give me ectopic beats or bursts of palpitations which were pretty horrific, and the medication side-effects were not great.

I eventually had a second cardioversion. I had been reading every paper and any studies available online I could find on the subject, and had understood that there was more fundamentally wrong with my heart than just forcing my heart back into rhythm. Especially how the digestive system and vagus nerve affected it and inflammation. This second cardioversion failed after 24 hours. I then went back on the antiarrhythmic which brought my heart back into rhythm again but I felt awful.

My cardiologist put me on the list for an ablation, and the first time I missed this because I had a virus with a temperature, so it was rescheduled for some time later. I already new that after a long period of time the heart can "re-model" itself which can make it more difficult to achieve a sinus rhythm so I was getting anxious which doesn't help the condition.

I had the ablation and was told by the cardiologist that it had gone well. My ablation lasted a year (with a large number of ectopic beats and palpitations) then unfortunately I had a breakthrough into atrial fibrillation again. I asked to be put on the antiarrhythmic I was on before, and had read enough online information to realise I was possibly insulin resistant and the body inflammation that goes with carbohydrates and sugars in the diet. I started to try intermittent fasting, with a gentle approach of eating a few times a day and aiming for a 14 to eventually 17 hour fasting time which includes sleeping. I dropped my carbs and sugars (including fruit) much lower. I went from thousands of ectopic beats to a few hundred a day in a few months, so I knew I was going in the right direction due to lowering inflammation, and the "autophagy" healing part at the end of the fast. Although early on it was scary because I was stressing the body (ectopic beats, palpitations) to get the inflammation lower and the autophagy I needed.

Eventually with my cardiologist
I started to reduce my meds very slowly, and over the months I did have atrial fibrillation again which meant I needed to increase my dose for a few days to get my heart back into rhythm . I needed to be especially careful at night if I needed to get out of bed and use the toilet. I then went back slowly to my lower dose.

I am now a year on with my intermittent fasting. I caught Covid which appeared to affect my resting heart rate and my vagal sympathetic tone which was damn annoying and set me back a little, but my heart has stayed in rhythm and I am off the meds completely. I have noted other great improvements, like not needing to eat for many hours with no ill effects, and hi energy levels. I wish I had discovered this when I was younger, but this knowledge is fairly new and was not easily accessible before the internet. On a scale of 1 to 100% I am at about 95% Which is wonderful, as we all know here what an awful thing atrial fibrillation can be.

In this vein, this guy found that reducing glucose in his diet dropped his thousands of PAC's/day dramatically.

This thread also talks about glucose & afib. Also this thread on keto & afib.

Great Mike! Thanks for taking the time and effort to share your experience with us - makes sense and potentially very useful/commonsensical for us all. Jeff

Mike, except for metabolic syndrome (which is essentially insulin resistance), my story mirrors yours. I tried IF and ketogenic eating (not keto, it seemed unnecessary...all I wanted was to control weight and inflammation, not get into ketosis). I lost 22 pounds over four months. I can't say I felt better, but my usual pants fit a lot better. ><

My first nasty experience since being diagnosed in 2017 happened about a year after I had lost the weight. I was active, often run/walking 20 km each day, although not pushing the pace. Since then, my weight has climbed to pretty much what it was before, with BMI 27. Mostly this was because I was wary of stressing my heart.

I don't know how you feel about your generally unpredictable cardiopathic experience, but mine leaves me ground down. I'm not depressed, but I find myself, the past two weeks being the most horrible of all time, focusing only on keeping things 'even' and looking for my next dose of metoprolol, which is now higher than it has ever been. The world gets very small when you feel it closing in.

As it stands, eating too much, laughing too much, and not getting enough sleep are the most powerful triggers. Eating is under control, and I'm losing weight again, but watching sitcoms is a great way to keep distracted and at least getting that much exercise.

In the end, unfortunately, the disorder progresses and we lose ground It's the same for all of us. We get good periods, then a powerful stressor of some kind comes upon us and we end up with an episode.

I feel badly for those who report episodes lasting days, weeks, and even months, as you have. Mine seldom last more than an interminable 4-48 hours, and the paroxysmal nature reveals itself. I can at least be grateful for that harbinger that a future second ablation might just work.

Good luck to you, and thanks for chiming in with your story.

Great story. Most of what we eat and drink are poison. No wonder the organs react the way they do.

Quote
PavanPharter
Great story. Most of what we eat and drink are poison. No wonder the organs react the way they do.

Life is our poison.
We're getting older and there are things turning bad. To each his own.
The stressful thing with AFib is it affects a little machine we don't want it displaying "game over".

Great story Mike...congrats on "taking the bull by the horns" and doing things on your own to help...I think most people just do what their doctors tell them to do and that's it. Can I ask, did you drink any alcohol before all this, and did you stop drinking to help the cause? Alcohol intake really affects my afib.

74-yo persistent, but controlled afibber here. FWIW, since going Keto almost four years ago, I feel so much better... and my labs are ALL within normal ranges, A1C at 5.5, and have superlative cholesterol & trig values.

All the best to all!

/LarryG

Larry,

Help me understand. You have persistent afib (bouts lasting over a week) - how do you have that "controlled"? Not yet permanent?

Long time persistent, but some rare days I’ve caught myself in short spells of NSR.

By controlled, I mean my HR is typically between 60 to 90 bpm, and I experience no symptoms that bother me nor affect my fairly active lifestyle... aerobic walker, do full body resistance workouts, sing & play electric bass in a band part-time, work around the house / yard, etc. Retired for five years now, but my status was the same when I was working full-time. I know I’m one of the lucky ones here, but there are others also. Feel for those that have it worse. Prayers for all...

/Larry’s G

Got it, thanks for the clarification. When I had afib (ablated twice successfully), with drugs to control the heart rate (180 hr without drugs), I pretty much operated normally, but did not workout when in afib - too much O2 debt. But I was highly symptomatic and always knew when I went in and out of afib.

For further clarity, I take atenolol (25 mg daily... unchanged dose for the past 15 years) and Eliquis (5 mg b.i.d.).

/LarryG