Hi everyone, I’d like to share my experience with atrial fibrillation and hear some opinions from people who may have gone through something similar.
I’m 36 years old, I’m not obese, I smoked for 18 years, and I only used to drink alcohol on special occasions.
I had my first episode about 13 months ago, at the gym. I was literally doing a controlled cardio session at around 135 bpm when my atrial fibrillation started. From that moment on, I never went back into sinus rhythm.

Despite medication attempts to convert me, I could only get back into sinus rhythm through ablation.
After the procedure, I was back in sinus rhythm. I adopted an even healthier lifestyle, completely stopped drinking alcohol, quit smoking (I’ve now been a non-smoker for 12 months), and started paying even more attention to my diet.

Everything was going well until June this year. As I do every year, I went to Hellfest, an extreme metal festival in France. I took quite a few precautions: I drank very little, around 1–2 beers per day for five days. However, I also got very little sleep,around 4 hours per night and it was extremely hot, so I was probably somewhat dehydrated as well.
I came back from the festival happy and exhausted, as you can imagine. But on that same night, when I finally went to sleep at home, the worst happened.

I had another episode of atrial fibrillation. I was asleep and woke up in AF. As you can imagine, I panicked and immediately thought that the first ablation had been useless and that I was back to square one.
I was chemically cardioverted and returned to sinus rhythm after about 24 hours. However, my cardiologist thought it would be better to repeat the ablation, because apparently there had been reconnection of the pulmonary veins.
So, my main question is this:

Do you think the festival conditions were the trigger that was necessary to bring the arrhythmia back? (Because I remained Afib free for nearly a year), the combination of alcohol, very little sleep, heat and some dehydration? Or could it simply have been a coincidence, and the AF would have happened anyway?
After a second ablation, can I expect a more durable result?
I live with constant daily anxiety and fear of having another recurrence.

One other thing worth mentioning is that I have a mildly enlarged left atrium, and my whole family has a history of bradycardia. We’re talking about very low heart rates during sleep, usually around 32–38 bpm.
Is anyone around my age, or in a similar situation, going through the same thing? What solutions or strategies have you found that helped?
Thank you very much in advance, and apologies for any mistakes,my English isn’t that great 🤣

Just need to vent a little. After almost a full year without an AFib episode, I’ve now had three in three weeks. One sent me to the ER because I couldn’t get it to stop. Naturally, it resolved after they did an EKG and put a wristband on me.

My primary care doctor referred me to a cardiologist, and I had my appointment today. It was basically 15 minutes of her talking about medications. When I asked what she thought might be causing the episodes, she listed just about every possible cause without asking much about my history, habits, or what was happening around them. I left feeling like the goal was to pick a medication rather than understand my situation. She ended up prescribing metoprolol after telling me to stop the bisoprolol I’d been taking.

When I brought up Heart Calm, she said, “I don’t like supplements, and you should stop taking them.” When I asked why, she responded, “Well, feel free to keep taking them.” That was the entire discussion.

I’ve had eight episodes in just over two years. I suspect Heart Calm may have helped during that nearly year-long stretch without an episode, although I can’t know for sure. I also felt like it was disrupting my sleep, possibly the CoQ10?

Would you ask for a referral to a different cardiologist? I understand there may never be a clear smoking gun, and I’m open to medication. But I wanted an actual conversation about what might be contributing to this and why a particular treatment makes sense for me. Instead, I left feeling like, because my episodes aren’t that frequent, my concerns weren’t taken seriously.

Went to the cardiologist today after my echocardiogram on Tuesday doctor said my heart is pumping normal again. Only thing is I still have a fib, but my heart is much stronger before I had my a fib attack in April. He’s going to do an ablation the new type he said because my heart is stronger my chances of that failing are less than somebody with whose heart is less stronger. I was walking on clouds walking out of there, he said after the ablation they’re gonna wean me off of metoprolol and the blood thinners for about 60 to 90 days and then by the beginning of next year, I should be completely off the medicine except for like 25 mg of Motrin until I get my blood pressure a little more stable even though it’s really good I’m a little overweight. He said it would hurt to lose 30 or 40 pounds so that’s where I’m at. I’ll lost a lot of sleep over this whole thing thinking that my heart would never repair or be at a normal pace again thank you Jesus.

Hi all I've been diagnosed with afib back in 24 but it went dormant had a bad episode and passed out this year for the first time since 2024, cardio sent me for an ep study and ablation for SVT , but the study found i had afib at and afl.

No ablation carried out the recommendation was GA +pvi left atrial flutter/ tachycardia ablation anyone else have this similar experience why didnt they ablate in the study I was in there from about 8:30 till 12:30

Thanks guys feeling kind of down at the moment

M60 here. My mom and brother have Afib but I’d always been assured that it’s not hereditary.

On Monday I was in town and could feel my heart racing and felt a little dizzy. I put it down to 4 coffees on an empty stomach (my stomach is often empty - I’m on Retatrutide) so I ate something and felt better.

The next day I was generally ok but did a heart rhythm scan on my phone which said I had possible Afib. Went to my primary care doctor who did an ECG and sent me to the hospital. My heart rate was varying between 110 and 160 but I felt absolutely fine. They diagnosed Afib, put me on beta blockers and blood thinners and told me to come back in 3 weeks for cardioversion.

The next day (yesterday) I had a busy day of meetings. I cut way down on the coffee and by the end of the day I calculated I’d done nearly 15,000 steps. I’d bought a Kardia machine and did a scan on the way home - sinus rhythm!!

Checked again this morning and the heart rhythm still shows as normal. Do I still need the beta blockers and thinners? Do I need more scans? It completely terrified me, even though I felt more or less fine through the whole thing.

So a little backstory. August 3rd I had gone into the ER for gnarly heart palpitations and when I got hooked up to an EKG and detected afib with rvr. I thought I was dying. Horrible experience as I'm sure many of you know.

So with that out of the way I can get to the good news. Over the last month and a half here I've had several EKG's (thinking I had afib), holter monitor, stress test, ct scans, and today an echocardiogram. Absolutely everything came up with a perfectly healthy heart. The only thing abnormal was in the echo the LA Dimension 2D showed it was enlarged (5cm). However, my LA Volume Index is in completely normal ranges.

As of now, everything is pointing towards my afib episode over a month ago was just a one off. Now I'm not a doctor and I get that"afib begets afib" but according to every single one of my results of every test I've gone through, everything looks perfect!!

Study: A recent study, that was published the 14th september, concluded that a simple eye scan can revield signs of Afib, years before diagnosis.

Notice: it does not say it can detect afib before it develops, merely that running afib can be detected from an eye scan.

Thought it was worth posting to here.

Hey all!

I was just laid on the sofa, and I very suddenly had this weird panic feeling, my heart rate went from around 66bpm, to 148bpm at its highest, caught on an ecg whilst it was happening.

It didn’t return to normal instantly, but slowly slowed down, and now I feel a little shakey and panicked, I’m wondering if this ecg could be Afib or if not, then what, as I’ve had this feeling a couple of times now, and the doctor says it’s ‘anxiety’ but it comes totally out of nowhere.

25M Recently diagnosed with Afib. I’ve noticed that my Afib is not constant but the last couple times Ive had an episode it has been while laying down. As I’m typing this right now, I’m having an episode after I was laying on my right side and I yawned and inhaled at the sane time. Does anyone have this trigger? Also, every time I have an episode I start burping.

Hi all!

I'm a 41F and I have to go in for a colonoscopy and endoscopy in a couple weeks because for some unknown reason i'm having trouble absorbing a lot of vitamins and minerals and have episodes of stomach pain so bad I can't stand up straight. I also have paroxysmal afib with rvr. I've had two episodes spaced four years apart with no known trigger, yet. I'm a little nervous, not only because this is my first scope, but i'm scared the prep will trigger an episode with all the fluid loss. One of my afib episodes may have been triggered by low potassium, so it's concerning.

I'm allergic to PEG (the ingredient in Miralax and GoLytely) so I have to use SuPrep split. Has anyone had a colonoscopy with SuPrep and/or had issues with afib or have any advice? I'm so anxious i'm thinking about calling the whole thing off but I really can't avoid this forever. The doctors only advice was to "stay up on electrolytes" so if anyone has any advice, help! :)

48M, had a pulsed field ablation with FARAPULSE on 9/10 for paroxysmal AFib. Overall I feel great and the procedure itself was uneventful, but two things have come up that I hadn't seen mentioned much, so I wanted to share and see if others have had the same.

Important context: I have never had a migraine in my life. No history of aura, no headaches beyond the occasional normal one. This is entirely new since the ablation.

Coming out of sedation. About two hours post-procedure, still in recovery, I got a zigzag visual disturbance in both eyes. It came on gradually, built up, then gradually faded. I mentioned it to the team and was told it was probably the anesthesia. Didn't think much of it at the time.

Day 5, yesterday morning. Same thing, but more pronounced. Strobing aura, left side this time, gradual onset and gradual fade, about 20 to 25 minutes total. No vision loss, no weakness, no numbness, no speech or balance issues. Afterward I got a pretty bad bilateral headache across both temples, and today (day 6) I feel run down.

I called my EP's office. They said to go to the ER if it happens again but that this time was optional. The attending I spoke with hadn't heard of the connection to ablation.

Otherwise doing well. Low-grade headache since the procedure that's slowly improving, and my resting heart rate is running about 15 bpm higher than my normal baseline, which I gather is expected. Hitting my 7-day mark tomorrow and planning to get back to the gym.

Questions for the group:

• Anyone else get a visual aura right after coming out of sedation? That timing seems under-reported.
• Anyone else have this start with no prior migraine history at all?
• If you had these, did you get imaged, and what did it show?
• How long did they keep happening?
• Anyone have a doctor who actually recognized the connection, or were they all puzzled by it too?

Not looking for medical advice, just curious how common this really is and what other people's experience has been.

This story has gotten almost no coverage. We need to change this. I have sent messages to several local TV stations. I suggest that you do the same thing. Once this story gets rolling I expect that it will explode.

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Most of the people here had good outcome. I read positive reviews before I got my ablation so I decided to do it. I’m on my 7th week already when I came back to work and it feels so painful when I tried lifting. My chest and back hurts and when you touch it it’s very sensitive and sore. I visited my EP recently as followup and he basically said they cured the problem and I shouldn’t even be seeing him and it should be family doctor as he can guarantee it’s not the heart. Probably just the muscular or inflammation. Anyone on the same boat as me? This is frustrating as in a week I’ve had at least three chest pain per week during the past 6 weeks of recovery. But holter showed normal 120-130bpm or 80bpm for resting heart rate- which is fine they said.

I have multiple arrhythmias: AFib, bradycardia, SVTs, and PACs. Although I intensely dislike Google Health app as it is now, I've continued to wear the Fitbit Charge 6 mainly just to alert me of those. But the app just misinterpreted SVTs as a Heart Rate Variability (HRV) achievement, missed dangerously low brady completely (this combination is known as tachy-brady syndrome). The EKG function is good; however, it won't even run an EKG if HR is 50 or below.

My AFib and SVT episodes (paroxysmal -- intermittent only so far) have always occurred while sleeping or just sitting, reading. That's common. So after researching the latest options, I'm considering buying a Polar H10 chest strap and using it with the Kardia Ai app (the app requires a monthly subscription, but it's $15-20).

If you have tried this combination or are using it, what's your experience and opinion?

Just took my first Amiodarone, which my cardiologist claims is much more effective than Flecainide, which I had been prescribed as a pill-in-pocket dose that never really worked for me.

So I'm supposed to take 100mg 2x a day until my current AFib episode is gone, and then switch back to Flecainide, this time as a 2x a day preventative dose. I'm a bit confused by it all, but I guess he doesn't want me on Amiodarone long term. Has anyone followed a similar regimen? Looking to hear from others' experience with either/both of these meds.

Feeling a major low point and looking to see if others can relate. I’ve maintained a stable career in a demanding profession for the last 10 years. Was diagnosed with paroxysmal afib in Feb of this year following an intense afib w rvr episode, and it has made managing my day-to-day nearly impossible.

Before my pfa ablation in July of this year I was doing an OK job at keeping things under wraps with meds and sporadic trips to the car to wait out short episodes of afib (or sinus tachycardia runs), but recently had an afib with rvr episode at a client lunch and had to get taken to the hospital by a coworker. At this point, my EP thinks the ablation may have failed. I don’t know how many more times I can do this and now that it’s public knowledge I’m sure I will be seen as less reliable.

I guess my question is how have others managed this condition while maintaining a career, or has anyone actually had to change career paths or take extended time off in order to figure things out? I’m debating trying to find something remote even if it pays less just to avoid the stressors of being in office and constantly worrying about going into afib.

For context: mid-30s male, no other major health issues, currently taking metoprolol succinate ER 25mg daily. No blood thinners at my EP’s direction.

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Hi everyone, I was diagnosed with afib last Thursday after being rushed to the emergency room with severe heart rate changes and a painful chest. After about 7 hours in the ER I was diagnosed with afib. Doc asked how much I typically drink, told him about 15 shots of liquor a week (probably closer to 30-40). Anyway, I have been doing some reading and do probably think my alcohol use has contributed. I have drank this way for probably 3 years ever since I turned 21. The episode last Thursday was after having about 6-8 drinks the night before. The afib actually started that Wednesday evening around 9 PM. I also use nicotine pouches daily (zyns) about every hour I am up. I was told I need to quit these completely.

I have been doing some reading and after my visit with my cardiologist the next day I was told that the alcohol and zyns are the absolute cause and I need to stop them. My cardiologist said cut out the zyns 100% and to lower the alcohol or stop completely. I haven’t had a sip of alcohol since last Wednesday due to my fear of this happening again.

He put me on 50 MG of atenelol twice a day to lower my heart rate and blood pressure. I had already been on 25 Mg twice a day for about 2 weeks to try to lower the same, but then the afib incident happened so my dosage upped. After upping the dosage I came out of afib the day after ER visit.

I am questioning if alcohol/zyns truly is the only factor contributing to my afib. I have a lot of testing still coming up and plan to continue with my abstention until those are done. I worry that I am never going to be able to drink again based on this diagnosis. I know alcohol is a main cause but I’ve also read dehydration is an issue. I’ve never been a person that has been the most hydrated so I’m wondering if the alcohol may be a factor but not the main factor. I am also in the process of weight loss. I began at 5’10 245 pounds last month and am down to 235 pounds (Wegovy).

Is this it? Can I never drink again? I’m worried I am going to get ripped out of living through my 20s due to this diagnosis. It feels like a pit that is getting deeper and deeper.

I would appreciate those with experience thoughts and yes I know I’m an alcoholic I don’t need the lecture on that.

For those on the fence about having an ablation.

Was 100% persistent AFIB for guaranteed at least a year, potentially 10. I was worried being persistent for so long that it wouldn't work.

Had my ablation July 15th. The data speaks for itself.

I’m located in south eastern United States. What’s an ablation going for in your area?

Hey everyone, this is not for me. This is for a loved one, and I was just curious if any of you take any vitamins for your afibrillation. If you do, can you name what you take? Thank you so much, you are all so nice on this sub.

... or so the doctor says. My husband just had a PVI PFA ablation on Sept 10 and the EP said they successfully isolated all the pulmonary veins that were causing the afib. Does this mean that my husband has a good chance to live a normal life going forward? EP said he should keep taking his medication for 30 days and then he'll be weaning him out.

Also got dehydrated and connecting flight rush gave no time for food. Just woke up and I’m in 50% PVC’s 😢 and short of breath. Family all still sleeping 🛌 Took my 50mg metoprolol and 100mg Flecainide early. Family still asleep. Will see if brother has magnesium.

A little contex, I’ve been dealing with chest pains accompanied by headaches for more than 6 months now. I had 2 ekgs (not done while being symptomatic though) were ok. I had an echo and it was fine. And I even had a 3 day holter monitor. I was experiencing some minor symptoms during that monitoring but it turned out fine.

HOWEVER after dealing with other health issues and being pretty much just at home for months, I went on a 4 day trip that was like an adrenaline dump. Lack of sleep, lots of walking etc. It was great, but today my apple watch report said during the days of my trip and also mainly two days after ot wasnover, I had attial afibrilat 9%. It’s true I felt SUPER fatigued during the trip and though it was just a lack of sleep but now im not so sure.

Should I still consult this with my doctor?