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1569985 tn?1328247482

Irregular beats after electroconversion normal?

Since I've been home from the hospital (2 mornings), I've been awakened with irregular beats.  They've gone away in about 5 to 10 minutes, and I haven't had the rapid ventricular heart rate.  Later in the day, I've had some irregular beats now and then for an hour or two and then they've gone away.  My blood pressure cuff has a little symbol that pops up when the beat is irregular.  

I'm back on my regular regimen of Atenolol, Xanax and Coumadin.  I have sleep apnea and called the people who handle the machine and she said I could come in Monday a.m. and they can extract data from the machine and see what's happening.  I also want to talk with or better yet, get in to see the nurse practitioner who handles sleep apnea.  I am supposed to follow up with my EP doctor within 2 weeks. I will see if I can get in asap.  

Not sure if I should try to return to work, I don't think it will help my heart issues.  I am going to contact HR about what my leave possibilities are -- may have used up my FMLA time already, not sure.

Any thoughts?  Does this mean my conversion isn't going to hold???  I am kinda worried here:(
Best Answer
612551 tn?1450022175
COMMUNITY LEADER
I am not sure about terminology here but I assume you underwent an electrocardioversion.  I have had several of those and it was always to convert a "simple" Atrial Fibrillation into NSR.

In all cases my heart was in NSR when I awoke form the sedative.  In a couple of cases, including the last attempt in August 2008, my heart would not hold NSR and it converted back to AFib in about a week in one case an in about a month in the other.  The successful conversions each lasted about 1.5 years.  On my last failure I was on a high dose of Rhythmol, and even that couldn't hold my NSR.

Not sure my experience relates, hope your heat settles down regardless of what my experience has been.
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1569985 tn?1328247482
Thanks for the input.  I am calling the doctor in the morning and getting an appt. to get in and discuss this.  Now that I think about it, after my last conversion, I did have some irregular beats -- the blood pressure cuff I had at that time would beep with each heartbeat, so it was easy to tell if it was regular or not.  Now I have a new cuff, and it just shows a picture of a vibrating heart (cute, huh?), so maybe I'm seeing what I had before.  The last one held for 3-1/2 months and I'm hoping maybe with a different medication, this one will hold.  What medication were you on after the successful conversions?  Maybe you said, but I don't recall.  Perhaps my brain was fried when my heart was jump-started:)
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