How to shorten an arrhythmia episode?

I am a 65 year old male. I have suffered from arrhythmia for at least 5 years and  have 2 to 5 arrhythmic attacks a month, mainly in late evening into the early hours of the morning (frequently after going to bed). I take 50mg of flecainide in the morning and 100mg in the evening. These irregular heartbeat episodes can sometimes go on for 2, 3 or 4 hours, which causes me to be stressed and affects my regular sleep pattern.  Q. Is there any method or drug I can use to shorten the length of the attacks, I would feel more able to cope if I could shorten these attacks.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thank you
Derek Arnold

[ireneo]

There are various vagal maneuvers that may help. Some folks cough, bend over, squat, splash ice water on their face. My favorite is the valsalva. I take a deep breath, hold it and push as if doing a bowel movement. I push for about 10 seconds then release my breath slowly. Some things I've learned from this: my heart will flip/flop and feel uncomfortable doing this but that shows me it's trying to kick back to a normal rhythm; if I release my breath quickly, my heart jumps right back into tachy; it's best to do valsalva within the first few minutes of the tachy time since the longer it goes on, the less successful the maneuver will be; it may take 1-3 times of doing this to kick it back to normal.

As for the meds, some people do the "pill in the pocket" treatment - have an anti-arrhythmic med available to take only when the rhythm won't convert on its own. I don't know which meds work that way and whether it would work well since you're on flecainide already. That's something to discuss with your doctor.

Has your cardio mentioned doing a catheter ablation? Do you know specifically what type of arrhythmia you have?

[blackhole551]

Vagal maneuvers only work for certain specific arrhythmias. If your arrhythmia is irregular, at your age it is probably short episodes of atrial fibrillation. Vagal maneuvers will not help at all for atrial fibrillation as the arrhythmia is not due to AV nodal reentry. If it is atrial fibrillation, medications are the best way to reduce the episoded. You must first find out what type of rhythm you are having. Get a holter monitor to find out.

[bushbee]

The power of the mind is a powerful weapon.  If you have had tests and there isn't anything significant wrong, the worst thing you can do is stress.  This will only makes things worst. I have had 2 really bad episodes of PVC, the first time I got tests done with no significant findings.  I changed jobs (stressful) and they instantly stopped.  9 months ago I had another episode, these episodes lasts months and I would have hundreds through the day.  This time I told myself there is nothing wrong over and over.  Withing a couple of days the hard beats weren't so hard and within another day they were gone completely.  This is after having them constantly for 3 months.  That was 6 months ago.
Last week I was a bit stressed again and I felt them coming on again, straight away I did the mind thing and they were gone in one  hour.  That was 1 week ago.
I believe I will always be susceptible to PVC's but I now am able to control them and life is so much better.
I hope this give you and anyone else hope.