Vagal A-Fib

[Carl LaFong]

I'm a 48 year old male - good health.  After long dental procedures in 2003, began having some brief episodes of AF.  Episodes last year became more frequent after my sister died.  Stress test, echo, showed all is fine except for vagal AF.  I had it 15 times in November, but only upon going to sleep, between 11pm and 1am. Only had one instance where my heart was violently "galloping" - it was stopped at the hospital with Cardizem.  Hospital said I was low on potassium.  

Found that if I got up and coughed, it stopped, so tried sleeping sitting up until 3am, then could like back down. Have since had very good results taking 200 mg of magnesuim and 30 mg of co-Q 10 twice per day, and one vitamin C/potassium packet at night. Now only have a little two second skip occasionally at night.

So, two respected cardiologists in Atlanta have been amazingly unhelpful with information - had no recommendations except for taking Rhythmol.  With the side effects and my controlling the episodes, why would I take something that might make it worse when I was controlling it already?  They also admitted they knew nothing about any supplement help, which is also insane to me.  The rest of the world seems to accept it.  When I asked for details about how the vagal system was causing this, told me to go get a book on physiology.  Am also amazed with lack of awareness among dentists as to the effects on the heart of the stimulants in dental anesthesia.

So, is there a place to learn more about vagal AF, and any suggestions as to how to control/treat it?

[dana1948]

A related discussion, vagal fib was started.

[Carl LaFong]

Res ipsa loquitur

[Forum-M.D.-bkj]

Carl,

Thanks for the post.

Your assumption of supplement use being accepted is not neccessarily right.  If you look hard enough on the internet you are going to find 'accepted' cures for any particular malady that will involve some type of supplement, ritual.  Truthfully, there is randomized proof, other that personal histories that show benefits of supplement use. Overall, I my patients want to try a particular supplement I advise them that there may be no particular benefit, but Im not sure of the risk.

As an example Vitamin E use was thought to be beneficial in heart disease due to it's antioxidant properties, but in large studies has been shown to not be helpful and possibly display a trend for harm in patients with coronary disease.

As for your eagerness to learn more, possible a trip to pubmed, which is a scientifc database of journals or looking through some medical text could help. These will  aslo probably lead to some debate.  The basics of the autonomic medical (vagal) system are complex to grasp.

good luck

[anacyde]

I had epinepherine (sp?) for a dental procedure once.  Interestingly I felt great during and shortly after, but my palpitations were off the charts for weeks after.  Now I have NO EPI on my charts and it works out just fine.

Most doctors will tell you they don't know much about supplements.  As for dentists lacking knowledge about stimulant effects, I've had excellent luck with my dentists.  They all have been extremely well-informed and knowledgable about such things.  When I mentioned my symptoms to my dentist, he said it had to have been the epi, and we could work around that.  I would imagine in medicine, it is extremely difficult to specialize and be expected to know so much about so many other things.

[Shirl94]

You should check out   www.afibbers.org, you can learn a lot about a-fib on this site.