Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation - a lucky escape
Discussion
For many years, I've had an occasional flutter in my heartbeat, usually when relaxing - it feels like a missed beat, but I'm told its actually an extra beat, or sometimes two. Its never bothered me, and it was checked out and I was told to lay off anything with caffeine.
Christmas Day morning arrives with me feeling a bit iffy - enough to subdue me for the day, but not enough to stop me enjoying a full Christmas lunch.
However, at 2:00am on Boxing Day, I wake up with chest pains and a very fluttery heartbeat. A quick call to 111 and within half an hour, I have blue flashing lights outside. At this point, my resting heartbeat is well north of 150bpm (max of 178!!) and I'm regularly skipping three or four beats at a time.
Ambulance crew suspect a heart attack, so straight into A&E. The hospital suspect a heart attack and hook me up to a monitor and take the usual bloods. The doctor on call suspects a heart attack and treats it as such. The bloods come back and confirm it wasn't a heart attack.
I was kept in for observation on Boxing Day night and woken up by a concerned looking doctor at 4:00am to be told my sleeping heart rate is north of 150bpm again.
The diagnosis, in plain English, is that my body had started to lose its ability to regulate its own heartbeat, which will now be controlled with medication for the rest of my life.
One of the issues is that for "gentlemen of a certain age" (I'm 58), 150bpm isn't sustainable for any great length of time and there's a chance that if you get it early enough in a night's sleep, the heart may not last the night and you'll never wake up. I've got away extremely lightly and I'm very thankful, especialy after seeing some of the other poor sods in the cardiology ward.
So - just a quick word of warning - if you get the occasional heart flutter, don't do the usual PH bloke thing and assume it will go away. It almost certainly will go away, right up to the point where it doesn't....
Happy New Year folks
Christmas Day morning arrives with me feeling a bit iffy - enough to subdue me for the day, but not enough to stop me enjoying a full Christmas lunch.
However, at 2:00am on Boxing Day, I wake up with chest pains and a very fluttery heartbeat. A quick call to 111 and within half an hour, I have blue flashing lights outside. At this point, my resting heartbeat is well north of 150bpm (max of 178!!) and I'm regularly skipping three or four beats at a time.
Ambulance crew suspect a heart attack, so straight into A&E. The hospital suspect a heart attack and hook me up to a monitor and take the usual bloods. The doctor on call suspects a heart attack and treats it as such. The bloods come back and confirm it wasn't a heart attack.
I was kept in for observation on Boxing Day night and woken up by a concerned looking doctor at 4:00am to be told my sleeping heart rate is north of 150bpm again.
The diagnosis, in plain English, is that my body had started to lose its ability to regulate its own heartbeat, which will now be controlled with medication for the rest of my life.
One of the issues is that for "gentlemen of a certain age" (I'm 58), 150bpm isn't sustainable for any great length of time and there's a chance that if you get it early enough in a night's sleep, the heart may not last the night and you'll never wake up. I've got away extremely lightly and I'm very thankful, especialy after seeing some of the other poor sods in the cardiology ward.
So - just a quick word of warning - if you get the occasional heart flutter, don't do the usual PH bloke thing and assume it will go away. It almost certainly will go away, right up to the point where it doesn't....
Happy New Year folks
They suspected I sort of had the opposite of that, whilst in a hospital outpatient clinic for something else I blacked out (I hate needles). My heart rate and BP went very low and they suspected a "heart block" where the nerve impulses from the brain telling the heart to beat don't get there and then some reflex thing takes over to sort of keep your heart beating until the nerves get going again.
As a result of that I got carted off to A&E, bloods, observation and supposedly a 24 hour MRI which didn't materialise some 3 days later (good old NHS), I got bored and discharged myself. Was in a bit of paranoid state after that, convincing myself that every murmur was my heart stopping despite not having had any symptoms before the event
I eventually got the 24 hour trace through my GP, a referral to cardiology and an MRI. The cardiologist was pleasant and pretty dismissive of anything going on though which put my mind at ease. The MRI confirmed it. Just a panic attack in the end.
Sh*ts you up a bit though when something like that happens. There was talk of pacemakers and all sorts.
Good luck with your treatment!
As a result of that I got carted off to A&E, bloods, observation and supposedly a 24 hour MRI which didn't materialise some 3 days later (good old NHS), I got bored and discharged myself. Was in a bit of paranoid state after that, convincing myself that every murmur was my heart stopping despite not having had any symptoms before the event
I eventually got the 24 hour trace through my GP, a referral to cardiology and an MRI. The cardiologist was pleasant and pretty dismissive of anything going on though which put my mind at ease. The MRI confirmed it. Just a panic attack in the end.
Sh*ts you up a bit though when something like that happens. There was talk of pacemakers and all sorts.
Good luck with your treatment!
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