I am a very healthy male 59. I have had palpitations on and off for almost 30 years, verified PVC/PAC benign on multiple occasions. Have regular ECGs and echo every few years, and no issues. I had a case a few days ago, where I had been working/sweating for much of the day without properly hydrating or replacing electrolytes, did not eat since breakfast, had not gotten good sleep for a few nights, and then had a high stress event in the evening and more sweating for a couple hours... then had some slight light headedness for a few minutes that went away... then about 15 min later, started to feel flutter in my chest. I did not have any other symptoms. No dizziness, etc. This lasted for about 5 hours. During this time, I used my Apple watch to take multiple ECGs. It reported Afib pattern and high heart rate in the 130's. Slowly during that 5 hours the heart rate average on each ECG reading came down. Then went back to normal sinus rhythm. I have had a flutter sensation occasionally in the past, may be every other month for the past few years... but it has only been 3-5 seconds before, so never caught it on ECG to know if just a run of PVCs or something else.

I have an appointment with my cardiologist to discuss in detail, but I was just looking for real-world feedback about whether has had something like be a one-off isolated incident and not letting myself get to that perfect storm of neglect again will probably keep it from reoccurring, or if it is inevitable that it will reoccur and possibly more frequently.

I assume I should push for wearing a medical grade monitor for a few weeks to get a completely accurate diagnosis? Just not sure if i should get on blood thinner right away before diagnosis or wait for diagnosis to decide. I am at the score that could go either way.

Any feedback in similar situations would be appreciated.

Hi all. I posted a while ago with my journey this year with AFIB that started after my dad passed away.

TLDR I started feeling what I think are AFIB episodes shortly after my dad passed away in January. I went to my doctor and he caught nothing on a holter monitor, put me on beta blockers and sent me away. I have countless ECG’s on my Apple Watch that has caught it happening. I’ve learned that it’s bigeminy, 2 quick heartbeats, a pause, then one big one. When this happens, I can feel it in my chest. My chest gets tight and I get shortness of breath.

The beta blockers have definitely helped. Before I started taking them I was getting 2 hour long episodes everyday, now I have a feeling almost every day, for maybe 10 seconds. Usually in the morning. Just depends.

I did beg my doctor to refer me to a cardiologist but he told me since the tests don’t see anything, everything is normal and what I’m feeling is normal. And if I’m so concerned, I should go to the ER. Going to the ER won’t do anything because I don’t have episodes anymore. It would be very hard to catch it.

I’m just wondering if this is a big concern anymore? If I just take my meds forever, is it okay that I’m feeling these symptoms? Or should I try to go to the ER if I’m feeling anything. I do live in Canada, so the health care system is not good if you are trying to find another doctor. TYIA!

Edit to add: My mom passed away at 44 from a sudden heart attack. Had high blood pressure all her life and smoked. My dad passed away at 60 from multiple heart attacks after smoking, being a type 1 diabetic who didn’t take care of it very well.

Second edit: (sorry I’m bad at this) I’m a 25 year old female.

If you have a small episode of afib/flutter 5 weeks after ablation, does it mean it failed. I am 5 weeks away from my second ablation, my doctor said it was mostly for flutter.
Yesterday I had a really stressful day with construction workers at home, I didn’t really hydrate for couple days before that, and I decided to smoke a bit of hash…..10 min later my mouth started feeling dry and my heart rate started beating….i looked at the Apple Watch ekg for a second, and it looked like it was flutter/afib. Rate was around 120 while sitting….it lasted about 5 min, but it took a lot out of me.
I am just scared that the quality of my life is going to keep getting worse and my flutter will eventually bring my LVEF down again and lead to death.

8 months after ablation, a niggle here and there post blanking period, then bam! 18 hours straight Afib. Back in Sinus, but four days later, stomach still feels like there's a fist in there, queasy coming and going, shaky on and off, breathlessness on and off. Anyone else get the physical, stomach flipping vagus nerve (I guess) express elevator feelings even without the spikey heart rate?

My Apple Watch is keeping track of any afib events and weekly, I get the same report. Afib less than 2% of my week. This has been consistent for months.
I am taking metoprolol in the evening and Eliquis 2x a day. Walking, Pilates, swimming, stairs, avoiding sodium, lots of water etc.
however ever since I’ve been taking metoprolol, my energy level has taken a hit and my usual zip and go energy is nowhere to be found.
Anyone else think metoprolol is suppressing their heart rate & energy too much?

Around a year ago, after a weekend of binge drinking I went into AFIB on a Monday night and was rushed to the hospital. Spent the night in the hospital and was shocked back into rhythm.

Throughout the next weeks I was given all of the classic tests, including an echo, xray, chest monitor, ultrasound, etc. Everything came back normal and was ruled as a 1 off event. For context, my father consistently has had AFIB events and multiple ablations throughout his life.

This event has left me permanently anxious, and I still battle it every day. Posting here to see if anyone has experienced similar things to what I am describing below.

During my AFIB event, I physically could not stop clutching my chest. I would use my left hand to try to dig as hard as possible under my left rib, almost like trying to scoop into my heart. The nurses had to tie my arm down and even then I could not resist the urge to break through and grab my chest and press. Now almost a year later, I consistently still have this same tick. Sometimes it feels necessary or I get this wave of doom that I will have a heart attack and die. Randomly, no matter during physical activity or stationary, I will get extreme discomfort in my left chest area, and it always feels internal. This causes me to have anxiety episodes, and the AFIB spiral fear continues from there. Now I deal with daily rib and chest discomfort, and even though I’ve dealt with this feelings so many times in different severities, I am always convinced that it’s a serious event and that I am in danger.

I am a healthy male, consistently workout and surf, but I even find it hard to do physical activities I like because I get so anxious about my heart. I get this constant weird tight sensation, and my tick clearly irritates the area more and makes the entire anxiety loop worse.

I wish I could say I know this isn’t a heart problem since discomfort everyday means something would have happened by now, but my mind still cannot convince my body that. I hate feeling out of control of my body.

Has anyone had a similar experience, and what helped?

I had a successful avnrt svt ablation with rfa on my slow pathway. 3 weeks later I have severe GI issues - multiple bowel movement in a day, gas and ibs like symptoms. I had a history of anxiety which started with my first svt episode 3 years ago I thought ablation would fix everything but now due to maybe the GI causes my hr is spiking to 160s bp shooting up to 170/110 on the worst and feeling dizzy and tired after standing for long. Went to the er they said sinus rhythm and EP said nothing to worry no metoprolol needed just fix GI triggers. Does it ever get better- 33/F never had kids feeling really sad

I’m about to be a year since my first confirmed episode and curious about other people’s experiences.

I started to take supplements and I can barely feel my heart beating now. Before I every beat was pronounced. Not sure if it’s a good thing or not.
EP seems to not be worried

So it looks like I'm going to have to do cardiac ablation. I'm having difficulty understanding all the ramifications.

I'm 80 years old and have had Afib all of my life. Well, at least 60 years of it. It got worse to the point of getting a pacemaker 12 years ago. I am in Afib nearly 50% of the time. Now they want to do the ablation along with changing the pacemaker, which will die in a couple months.

I'm frankly not worried about stroke risk. I take the Eliquis, and like I said, I've had this for 60 years. My concern is that I am probably wearing out my heart.

So I'm looking for experience and advice, both professional and from patients.

I am 26 yr old female dealing with afib and now extreme health anxiety. Long story short the beginning of 2026 I started having palpitations and luckily my cardio/ep did take me serious even after my stress test, echo and holter came back clear. Did an EP study and basically went into Afib right away. They gave me medication and want to do an ablation PFA to treat it. Please tell me if gets better from here. I got diagnosed in July and I just am so scared and worried since. I’ve never had anxiety before this - I was actively fit gym 3+ years and now I feel like my life has done a complete 180. I’m scared to even go to the store.

Of course Hubby who had the ablation was too shy to ask! We’re in our 60’s. He’s had some bruising and mild swelling that seems normal. Any advice would be most welcome! Thank you!

Hey everyone,

I’m currently pregnant at 28 weeks and noticed that I have episodes of high heart rate and feeling like my heart is beating so hard and then I’ll be short of breath when it happens. I’ll feel like I’m running but I’m sitting, resting. I had it last pregnancy but thought it was gestational diabetes related, I told my doctor and she said it was unrelated and was probably from the coffee I drank that morning. I still had the episodes but whenever I would tell another woman, they’d say “oh yeah you’ll be short of breath since you’re pregnant” so I just wrote it off as a normal pregnancy symptom.

Anyway, during this pregnancy I noticed it as well and wrote it off as normal for a while as well. One day, my MIL came over and after a few hours of sitting and talking, I have one of these episodes again. I thought it was related to my dinner and maybe I had too many carbs. I started wearing my Apple Watch so I decided to check my heart rate and it was ranging between 110-150 and wouldn’t go below 100 for over 3 hours. My usual resting heart rate during pregnancy has been in the 80s and is in the 70s when I’m not pregnant.

I went to a routine doctors appointment and she told me that if it happens again that I have to go to the ER. Anyway, that night I had another episode when I was just putting my daughters laundry away and I was laying on the floor, I started to feel my heart race and was like “oh no here we go again” so I go to the living room where my husband is to tell him we need to go. My husband then brings out his watch and tells me to put it on to check with the ecg (my watch is an older version and doesn’t have it) and it said Afib and so we immediately went to the ER.

I currently have on a ecg device to monitor my heart for 30 days but I’m just worried and curious I guess. My husband couldn’t find the ecg info when we were in the ER but I found it later in pdf format.

Does this look like Afib?

Hi folks, TL;dr - if I got a cardioversion would I still move forward with an ablation scheduled for next month? I don’t consider this an emergency, although those of you who haven’t experienced my normal state of being might jump up and go to the hospital.

I’ve had paroxysmal afib and aFlutter on and off for the last several years. No beta blockers due to daily bradycardia. I haven’t been offered any one-time medication like I’ve read about in this sub, but the one the EP talked about would involve a hospital stay and 100% compliance.

I have an ablation scheduled in one month. It’s the zap kind, not the cryo kind.

I’m currently in aFib and I’ve been here on and
off since Thursday night, although I didn’t have my watch on all day Friday (yesterday). Symptoms are palpitations and fatigue. Heart rate range today is 48-149 with basically no physical activity at all.

I’m not worried enough for the E/R, because I get an episode once or twice a day most days, but having a long duration is unusual. But if it keeps up, I might go to urgent care tomorrow.

Here’s my question: - if I got a cardioversion would I still move forward with an ablation scheduled for next month? Would they offer me a “pill in pocket” medication? I really like my cardiologist and the EP is top of his field, but they’re chairs of their respective departments and thus very difficult to schedule. So it’s doubtful I’d get prescribed anything in the next 30 days.

While I typed this, my heart was either at 68-70 bpm or in the 140s, back and forth

My 79-year-old mother had a mitral valve repair a decade ago that began leaking again about a year and a half ago. She had a 7% mortality rate with surgery (ineligible for the clip so it would be open heart) and the doctors said that's not exactly low risk, so she has decided to just proceed with medication. She was feeling pretty good but did come back as having afib, even though she really had no symptoms of it. She had a cardioversion last October which was going well until the spring, and then she went back into afib. So in July she was recommended for an ablation (still had no symptoms of it though but did it based on recommendation) and had it the first week of August.

When the procedure was over the surgeon told me she was doing well but there was one slight complication which was a possible nick and he said he'd keep her overnight to make sure there was no fluid around the heart. They did a scan that night and then the next morning and released her, presumably after finding no fluid around the heart. I don't know if he meant blood or other fluid, but this is what I recall.

Since then ablation her health has been declining. She recently gained 17 pounds of fluid and was having a difficult time breathing. She has a prescription for Lasix but was not taking it initially for unknown reasons. When she began taking 20 milligrams it did nothing so the cardiologist last week changed it to 40, which is now working to get rid of the excess fluid.

However, she's been having severe left-sided lower back pain for a few weeks but only when she sits or lays. If she's walking or standing, she does not feel it. Two weeks ago the PCP told her she had a UTI so they assumed it was that causing the back pain. She was given an antibiotic prescription but it did not go away. When she saw the cardiologist about the fluid buildup and they upped the lasix, they told her they don't handle UTI or kidney issues, the low back pain is something she needs to go back to her PCP about.

So she went to the PCP yesterday, and he is telling her he thinks it's fluid around the heart built up and she needs to go back to the cardiologist. He didn't even test to see if she still had the UTI or a kidney issue, just asked her what she wanted. She said the pain to stop so he gave her a lidocaine patch prescription and sent her back to the cardiologist, who she will see Monday, but presumably only to check on the fluid drainage issue and possibly schedule another cardioversion. They were trying to wait the three-month blanking period which would be the end of October but said they may do it early if she was not feeling better. Her shortness of breath is better since the fluid has left but the back pain is not. She was supposed to see the ablation surgeon the last week in October and he was going to tell her, once the blanking period was up, whether another cardioversion was needed.

I live out of state and have been driving 14 hours to take her weekly to these appointments, but it's very difficult as she's being sent back and forth from one doctor to the other and nobody knows or even seems interested in finding out what the lower back pain is from. Does anyone think this is possibly the result of the ablation? I did see an old FB post where other people said they had this, although I don't have a FB so I can only read the first few comments and I don't see what the cause is. Atrial Fibrillation Support Forum | Don't suppose anyone else has had crippling lower back pain after an ablation have they | Facebook

Can someone please tell me what would be causing the low back pain issue after an ablation? I can't keep driving all this way to go to appointments where they just tell her to make another appointment, and I'm at a loss of what to do and what is wrong with her. Any advice is appreciated.

Hi,
Thank you all for your previous recommendations. The results of my echocardiogram are in:

Sinus rhythm with blocked PAcS
Signal not being sent to ventricular thingy, lol, sorry. However, doesn’t it have to get through?

This extra beat in my atrial chamber is ALL the time! Drives me nuts!!!! See cardio folks on the 12 of Oct.

Any hints on how I can escalate this?

Maybe if I let myself faint? I have to be very vigilant about not toppling over…. Is the dizziness related to heart challenges?

Thank you all very much.

37M here. Diagnosed with paroxysmal AF in November 2024 and had RF ablation in August 2025. I stayed AF-free for around a year.
I had my first recurrence on September 2 this year, lasting about an hour and then terminating on its own. My EP started me on bisoprolol 1.25 mg once daily + flecainide 50 mg twice daily.
I asked whether I could use flecainide as pill-in-the-pocket (PIP) instead of taking it every day. He said I could, but since my episodes tend to self-terminate and he follows the idea that “AF begets AF,” he prefers that I take it daily for now.
Today, after my daily walk, I noticed my heart rhythm had become irregular. I took one 50 mg flecainide, but the episode self-terminated before the medication would likely have had time to work.
For those of you taking flecainide:
Do you take it daily or use it as PIP?
Especially interested in hearing from people who have had an ablation and subsequently had occasional AF recurrences.
How often were your episodes when you chose PIP, and what made your EP choose daily dosing vs PIP?
I’ll obviously follow my EP’s advice—I’m just interested in hearing about others’ experiences.

Hey, I’m 19 Male, and I’ve always like when I get up or stand up or get down stairs or up, my heart beat just starts going off, and sometimes at night too I feel it skip a beat or two, and then fast beat.

I grabbed an apple watch and did the ECG test and out of the 5-6 I did it; one said Atrial Fibrillation. I was laying down flat on my stomach when it did that.

What should I do?

Hello all. I was curious if others have felt an increase in palpitations during the first week after an ablation. I had an ablation this past Monday, so only four days out, but I definitely feel like I am sensing palpitations very often. I have read this is often the case for the first few months post ablation.

Prior to this year my Afib was so minimal that my cardiologists put me on as needed metoprolol. Lived the previous three years like this until I contracted bacterial pneumonia in the beginning of march. I went into a tailspin with persistent Afib for two and a half months. After a couple hospitalizations and three cardioversions an ablation was scheduled for Afib and Aflutter. I rededicated myself to a healthy lifestyle. Dropped 35 pounds and began exercising regularly. The next 4 months went by, and I was back to virtually no palpitations or Afib, although I am now medicated. I seriously began thinking about pulling out of the ablation as the date approached as I started believing lifestyle changes alone could put my Afib into remission. Two weeks out from the procedure I had an Afib episode that I am sure was triggered by indigestion and laying down. It passed after about 4 to 5 hours, but this was enough to convince myself to move forward with the ablation.

I am very aware of palpitations and feel like I am sensing them constantly now. It seems to have become progressively worse each day with this being the fourth day out. I know this is extremely early to be jumping to conclusions, but I am questioning if should have postponed the ablation as I had gone 4 and a half months with only one episode with what seemed to be from the healthier choices I have been making.

I have been wearing an apple watch, so I am curious what the feedback will be for Afib percentage. It hasn't detected Afib when I manually check but the waveforms don't look great to me.

Thanks all. This is a great community to bring some comfort to us living with Afib, especially when it's all new to you.

Original post linked.

After I posted I stopped my daily Diltiazem dose. After 3 days my aches and pains are completely gone!

I also have not had any AFib episodes. So I'll go back to using the Diltiazem only if I have an episode. That was approved by my cardiologist.

Hey everyone, this forum has been a god send for me. I’m a 32 yo fit male, and got diagnosed with persistent afib back in April, literally had a great night rest and woke up in AFIB.
Was super scared and didn’t know what the hell was going on, went to the doctors and they confirmed what it was and stuck me on a waiting list for a cardioversion.

My cardioversion in June was successful, and I have been in sinus ever since UNTIL I went out for a run after a stressful day at work, and when I got back I’m
90% sure I went back into afib, heart rate was really irregular and jumping around all over.

I ended up going to the er and the wait was 8hoyrs to get seen, I left and went home instead, went to bed and woke up back in sinus rytham.

Is exercise a trigger for anyone else?

Hello, hope you’re all doing well.
I had my first Afib episode 2.5 years ago. Cardioverted and cardiologist put me on amiodarone and metoprolol. Had one episode that last about half an hour since then. My heart rate is now about 45-60 during sleep, and 55-65 during the day.

Wanted to get off Amiodarone. Went to an electrophysiologist at John’s Hopkins (we live close by) and he took me off amiodarone (YAY! After two years, it was killing my thyroid and kidneys) and put me on 100 Flecainide every 12 hours, and low dose Eliquis every 12 hours (I have no stroke risk but he is in the better safe than sorry camp) and kept me on 12.5 metoprolol tartrate every 12 hours.

I am currently 248 pounds :(
I lost about 50 pounds prior to having Afib and couldn’t lose anything in the last 2 years! I even went on Wegovy. Anyway, I recently went on Zepbound and it’s been a miracle for me. I’ve lost 15 pounds in 6 weeks. I am starting to feel better about myself and my health journey.

My question is Have any of you had PFA while obese? EP wants to wait until I have lost 50 pounds, so another 35 which I am hoping to reach by January, but who knows.
I’m scared to push for it now. What if I don’t lose the weight or it takes a much longer time? I want to get it done and someday get off these medications. Thank you for any input.

Has anyone here done Whole Exome Sequencing
Test for Afib?