32 years old with A-Fib

This is more of a brief history rather than a question. Your input is welcomed.

Hi,
I'm 32 and was diagnosed with A-fib . I couldn't believe it. I didn't know anything about this and have no family history of it. I'll give you a brief history of how I ended up with a-fib.

I was 26 and had a terrible flu type virus. I was admitted to the hosp. with high fever and symptoms that doctors just couldn't understand. I was tested for 4 days by some 20-30 doctors and they couldn't figure out what I had. After I left the hosp., feeling better, I was back to normal within a week. About 2 weeks later, I started feeling a funny feeling around my throat area. I could feel my heart beat and also the rythem on my throat. I didn't make much of it but noticed that it was happening more often (3-5x daily). The symptoms would last about 10-15 seconds per episode. As time went on (3 months), I would have these types of episodes occur 15-20x and last 30-60 seconds daily. At this time I seeked medical attention.

My wife worked at a major hospital in Manhattan (NYC) and was familiar with the the best cardiologists. I visited one and went through a number of tests. Well, after a couple of weeks and a number of tests, I was told that the flu-like virus I had a couple of months ago had attacked my heart and caused the irregular beats. I've been on a number of meds ever since. They seem to work for about 6 to 9 months but my symptoms would eventually come back. The meds I was on are as follows:

Toporol: 240mg (worked great for about 9 months but I would have symptoms 2-4x daily after 5 months on the med. and each episode would last about 5 min. with my heart beating irregularly from 50bpm to 160bpm.)

Cardizem: 240mg (same results as Toporol except that after 5 months of having nearly no symptoms that I could detect, I started to have 2 or more episodes a day. The only difference with the symptoms was that my heart wouldn't race to 160bpm. and the episodes would last about 10-15 min.)

Tiazac: 360mg (same results as Cardizem. It worked for about a year or so with minimal episodes (2x daily), but eventually became 15-20x daily with each one lasting 10-20 min. The other difference was that my heart rate had also slowed down.

Cardizem: 300mg (same results as Tiazac except my heart rate increased just a bit and the meds where good for only a month or two).

Finally, I went for my regular 6 month visit to my cardiologist. I was asked how I was feeling, I told him fine and that I was having the episodes about 5-10x daily. When he did the EKG, it showed that I was in a-fib and didn't even know it. He schedualed me for another visit within 2 weeks. I went back and again, without me knowing it, I was in a-fib. I was given a monitor for 24 hours.
About 3 days after returning the monitor, I received a call from my doc. and was asked how I felt. I told him that I was a bit upset because I didn't think I had any episodes while on the monitor. Well, to my surprise, he told me that I was in a-fib nearly the entire time and that my heart rate had dropped into the upper thirties while I was sleeping. He wanted me to go see him asap. I was a bit scared but anxious to get to the next stage. I went to see him the next day, and he told me that the next meds(Beta Pace) would require me to be in the hospital for about a week or so because of the possible side-effects.

I did the hospital stay with the new meds and had no symptoms the first 3 days at all. I was in sinus rythem the entire time with the only drawback being a slow heart rate. After 3 days, they wanted to see if decreasing the dosage would increase the heart-rate and keep me in sinus rythem. Well they tried from 160mg to 80 mg. It kept me in sinus rythem and the increase in heart rate was minimal. The 2nd day on the 80mg, while talking with my brother during visiting hours, my heart rate went from 50 to 165 bpm within a few seconds. It lasted about 10 min. . Immediately, I was put on blood thinner and my dosage was increased to 160mg. I went back into sinus rythem.
Since the new meds, (only about 2 weeks) I've had pvc's 20-30x and a-fib about 2-5x daily. The real set-back is that I've been getting dizzy spells and light-headed through out the day. My work is driving and I've been out of work for about 2 weeks. Now I'm waiting for an event recorder to determin what's my heart doing while I'm feeling dizzy.

[Cleveland Clinic, MD]

Thanks for sharing your story.  Afib is unusual in people your age but it does occur.  It sounds like your doctors are doing a good job of managing it. The links below are good sources of information about atrial fibrillation.

http://www.med-edu.com/patient/arrhythmia/atrial-fib.html
http://www.americanheart.org/Heart_and_Stroke_A_Z_Guide/afib.html
http://www.merck.com/!!vDXoe16kTvDXpz08Of/pubs/mmanual_home/chapt16.htm

[Elaina Porter]

I like the rest of the patients went through all of the same ordeal and same meds. and finally wound up on Beta-Pace.  Unfortunately Beta-Pace is the only drug that works, I don't believe I could live without it but now I am unemployed, and unable to purchase the medication since a one month supply is about $250.00.  So now I wonder what I am going to do?  I can't operate without the Beta-Pace but I can't afford to purchase it either.  If anyone knows of a program to assist in the cost of Beta-Pace please let me know

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