A-FIB

I am a 25 year old male in fairly good health. I was taking a prednisone pack for costocondritis , and was having alot of pain in my upper right quad area. Three days in to my prednisone pack my wife woke me up saying my heart was beating very fast and I was sweating. I went to the emergency room and had a heart rate of 205 and was in atrial fibrilation. after 18 hours in afib I returned to normal. Does anyone know what could have caused this my heart doctor says all test are good and he said it probaly wont happen again. It realy scares me to think it might happen again, I am very active and now I am scared to get off to far from home alone for a long time. Any info on this subject would be nice. Thanks

[va_tony]

Steroids like prednisone are known to cause atrial fibrillation.  Just google

"High-Dose Steroids May Increase Risk for Atrial Fibrillation"

and you'll find a story describing a study reported in Arch Intern Med. 2006;165:1016-1020 reporting afib as a side-effect of high dose steroid use.

"High-dose exposure was defined as oral or parenteral steroid at a daily dose of at least 7.5 mg of prednisone equivalents, and low-intermediate–dose exposure as less than 7.5 mg of prednisone equivalents or inhaled corticosteroids."

My guess is that if you are no longer using prednisone, you probably won't get another afib episode.

Best wishes

Tony

[nikgirl28]

Tony how are you doing.....how is your heart doing

[va_tony]

nikgirl

Thanks for asking.  Actually, I've been in and out of afib during the last few months, going into afib for a couple of weeks and then spontaneously converting and staying in normal sinus rhythm for a couple of weeks before another two-week episode.  Right now I'm in sinus rhythm (and have been the last week and a half). I've noticed that I seem to convert when I also take another medicine, indomethacin. The med is a strong NSAID that I take occasionally for a mild case of gout. I'm guessing that the NSAID, which reduces inflamation (inflammation), may reduce atrial diameter and thereby help to convert.  In reading up about indomethacin, I see it's also given to infants with ASD, apparently speeding up the closure of the defect.

Regards

Tony