Afib episodes - in/out of NSR during them

[lapopessa]

A couple of yeas ago I went to the ER for a particularly brutal Afib attack (not long, just harsh). The folks there noticed that I had a tendency to go / out of NSR several times before going into NSR for good. I've noticed that lately as well as I take my pulse during an episode. I'll have a few seconds of NSR and then back into afib. Is this something others have experienced & what's the cause? Anybody know what's going on?

[DeltaDawn23]

My heart did that when I was in the hospital trying a "pocket pill -- Rhythmol" to convert.  It kept going back and forth, but ultimately would not stay in NSR and I  had to be electroconverted.

[lapopessa]

Jerry - my afib sessions do convert back to NSR on their own. What I meant in my question is that during afib, my heart will go back and forth between NSR and afib sometimes. That's the odd thing I was wondering about.

[Jerry_NJ]

Your runs of AFib flipping may be shorter than what I can remember reporting, but a heart that goes back to NSR on its own is quite common. I will bet so common most of it isn't even reported on this forum.

For me, it is permanent AFib, wish I had short runs of AFib that returned to normal... I say without an personal knowledge.  My "good luck" is my permanent AFib is mostly asymptomatic, as long as I am not doing anything physically heaver than walking around the hours.

While there is some debate on this point, I think you can expect more AFib as you grow older, so it would be good to "write down" what's going on now so that you can compare that to what is going on in another year or two.  

[cindy707]

My two cents on it would be that your heart is going thru the atrial fib and then trying to re set the electrical of the heart on its own which is a very good thing and it isn't quite completing the sequence of the run,  I think all of us with a fib have gone thru it at least a couple of times....some people explain it that when they go into a fib they will feel a thump type of feeling during the process and from my understanding that is the heart trying to do the same thing.  Some people are super lucky and once they start into a fib the heart re sets itself and knocks the a fib out i wish i could have been so lucky.  The way our electrical works in the heart is so complex and yet the solution is so simple...NSR is all of our goals when it happens.  Because a fib is electrical based it makes alot of sense to me especially if you may have an extra electrical pathway and the heart is trying to return back to the right one from the bad one where our hearts beat normally it sort of veers off course..takes the wrong path in firing off and trys to revert back to the right one....thats my guess