Aa
Waking up to atrial flutter / atrial fibrillation
I am 28, physically fit/athletic, not smoking/using drugs, using only little alcohol, eating rather healthy, but I do have hypercholesterolemia which was found about two years ago. At that time I went to a doctor for "weird sensations of heart". High cholesterol was found via a bloodwork. (LDL 4.3 unmedicated then, was few months of the medication and LDL was 4.9). Back to 40mg of statins...
At that time, I was working for a REALLY stressful job (more than 80% of employees quit after 8 months of the new CEO stepping in), so I thought the stress might have caused the heart issues as well. I have had heart issues that have recently become worse, even though I quit the job nearly year ago and went back to school to study music (which I love!) :)
Anyways, as far as I can tell, I suffer from atrial flutter and more recently also from atrial fibrillation. Both seem to occur rather "randomly" after meals (mostly when I lie down/compress my torso) and while at sleep. Flutter happens only when asleep, but afib happens also after meals.
I usually wakeup after 3-4 hours of sleep to a fluttering sensation in inner ear, and then it turns to wildly racing pulse from 60-150. Pulse (from wrist) feels completely random, few slow beats, then some rapid ones and back to slow. Usually standing up stops it. Both cause mostly grief and annoyance since I really could use my sleep...
Alcohol has clear effect on afib, after drinking it happens much more often.
Sometimes when afib/tachycardia hits after meal/lying down, I feel dizzy, short of breath, numbness of jaw/face and a feeling of "impending doom" - BUT this most certainly is not an anxiety attack! I am still not feeling afraid, panicking or anything like that. It is just a feeling that "everything is not right". And it most certainly is not.
And when I wake up from sleep, it feels like someone wakes you up with a bucket of cold water, waking you up instantly - and completely. I feel like I´ve had a burst of adrenaline, my eyes are completely wide and open, although I should be very sleepy after few hours of sleep. After the "attack" has passed, it takes roughly 30 minutes to "cooldown" and to fall asleep again.
I´ve been at ER couple times, but as the flutter/afib is gone in few minutes after I wake up, they´ve never catched it. Same with meals / lying down.
Today, for the first time, I also had the "sense of feeling cold" after the afib. I was shivering for like 15-20 minutes, although I was under a very warm blanket in a room of 24C.
I do have some scoliosis at my neck and at first the doctors thought my c2/c3 joints were "at block", that there would not have been disc at all between them, but now they´ve noticed it´s there, but it´s just very small/hard to notice. I have no idea if this has something to do with vagal afib or not.
People tend to say, they have vagal afib mostly when they are sleeping on their left side, but I tend to wake up fluttering/afibbing from my right side. Something to do with my neck?
Anyways, I am going to doctor in few days and hope to get some bloodwork tested (adrenaline, thyroid, potassium, iodine, magnesium) and asking for possible holtering.
Recently, I´ve also had issues falling asleep, because my pulse is topping 100 (no flutter, no afib - just racing) When I stand up, it "normalizes" to 70-80. I was given beta blocker for this. It seems to help.
I have trained different martial arts for the past 20 years and I´ve learned to be VERY aware of my own body (positioning, breathing, heart, different sensations). I´ve never had any issues with my health before, so what I´ve gone through for the past two years have been a very humbling experience for me.
I´ve been at ER probably five times, but they just take the quick ECG which tells us nothing, because I have never had the flutter/afib for more than 15 minutes.
About 1.5 years ago I also had some variance of thyroid gland bloodwork. At some point I was at the high peak of the "normal values", then month or two later I was little bit under the normal values. I´ve also had higher than normal creatine values. Just listing everything that comes in to mind, in case it might have anything to do.
I am looking for any insight, comments etc to get this thing sorted out. What can I do? Do I have any options here?
At that time, I was working for a REALLY stressful job (more than 80% of employees quit after 8 months of the new CEO stepping in), so I thought the stress might have caused the heart issues as well. I have had heart issues that have recently become worse, even though I quit the job nearly year ago and went back to school to study music (which I love!) :)
Anyways, as far as I can tell, I suffer from atrial flutter and more recently also from atrial fibrillation. Both seem to occur rather "randomly" after meals (mostly when I lie down/compress my torso) and while at sleep. Flutter happens only when asleep, but afib happens also after meals.
I usually wakeup after 3-4 hours of sleep to a fluttering sensation in inner ear, and then it turns to wildly racing pulse from 60-150. Pulse (from wrist) feels completely random, few slow beats, then some rapid ones and back to slow. Usually standing up stops it. Both cause mostly grief and annoyance since I really could use my sleep...
Alcohol has clear effect on afib, after drinking it happens much more often.
Sometimes when afib/tachycardia hits after meal/lying down, I feel dizzy, short of breath, numbness of jaw/face and a feeling of "impending doom" - BUT this most certainly is not an anxiety attack! I am still not feeling afraid, panicking or anything like that. It is just a feeling that "everything is not right". And it most certainly is not.
And when I wake up from sleep, it feels like someone wakes you up with a bucket of cold water, waking you up instantly - and completely. I feel like I´ve had a burst of adrenaline, my eyes are completely wide and open, although I should be very sleepy after few hours of sleep. After the "attack" has passed, it takes roughly 30 minutes to "cooldown" and to fall asleep again.
I´ve been at ER couple times, but as the flutter/afib is gone in few minutes after I wake up, they´ve never catched it. Same with meals / lying down.
Today, for the first time, I also had the "sense of feeling cold" after the afib. I was shivering for like 15-20 minutes, although I was under a very warm blanket in a room of 24C.
I do have some scoliosis at my neck and at first the doctors thought my c2/c3 joints were "at block", that there would not have been disc at all between them, but now they´ve noticed it´s there, but it´s just very small/hard to notice. I have no idea if this has something to do with vagal afib or not.
People tend to say, they have vagal afib mostly when they are sleeping on their left side, but I tend to wake up fluttering/afibbing from my right side. Something to do with my neck?
Anyways, I am going to doctor in few days and hope to get some bloodwork tested (adrenaline, thyroid, potassium, iodine, magnesium) and asking for possible holtering.
Recently, I´ve also had issues falling asleep, because my pulse is topping 100 (no flutter, no afib - just racing) When I stand up, it "normalizes" to 70-80. I was given beta blocker for this. It seems to help.
I have trained different martial arts for the past 20 years and I´ve learned to be VERY aware of my own body (positioning, breathing, heart, different sensations). I´ve never had any issues with my health before, so what I´ve gone through for the past two years have been a very humbling experience for me.
I´ve been at ER probably five times, but they just take the quick ECG which tells us nothing, because I have never had the flutter/afib for more than 15 minutes.
About 1.5 years ago I also had some variance of thyroid gland bloodwork. At some point I was at the high peak of the "normal values", then month or two later I was little bit under the normal values. I´ve also had higher than normal creatine values. Just listing everything that comes in to mind, in case it might have anything to do.
I am looking for any insight, comments etc to get this thing sorted out. What can I do? Do I have any options here?
COMMUNITY LEADER
Well I didn't read the long posts, but checked in to see why you came back to the post and I am happy to read you are doing better, even if you don't know why.
Hope you have a great 2014, including an more heart rhythm issues/problems.
Hope you have a great 2014, including an more heart rhythm issues/problems.
2 Comments
Anyone that has afib needs to see an electrophysiologist. I have afib - currently in normal sinus rhythm and take metoprolol 50 mg Xr daily. I hope it doesn't come back but I have had 3 years with no incidents on the medication. If you have afib do not drink as it triggered 3 episodes in 2 years in which I went to the er and they had to shock me back into normal rhythm. For now I hope it doesn't come back but my doctor advised me he had it in his 30s and it didn't come back until he was in his 60s. As for afib flutters - I do get them from time to time and they remind me that the condition is still present. But if I go into afib I will contact my doctor and see what he suggests.
Anyone that has afib needs to see an electrophysiologist. I have afib - currently in normal sinus rhythm and take metoprolol 50 mg Xr daily. I hope it doesn't come back but I have had 3 years with no incidents on the medication. If you have afib do not drink as it triggered 3 episodes in 2 years in which I went to the er and they had to shock me back into normal rhythm. For now I hope it doesn't come back but my doctor advised me he had it in his 30s and it didn't come back until he was in his 60s. As for afib flutters - I do get them from time to time and they remind me that the condition is still present. But if I go into afib I will contact my doctor and see what he suggests.
Thanks for the comments. It has been years and my issue has partly solved itself. It basically just vanished / is very rare compared to what it used to be.
Sorry to hear of your continuing complaint.
I just started going through the same from the end of July 2011. I know how physically and psychologically wearing flutter/afib can be.
My background is that I had first couple of MIs in February and April. The second landed me in hospital where I underwent angioplasty and stenting of the circumflex branch of the Left Anterior Descending artery which was totally occluded. Two further arteries on the left of the heart which were only partially occluded were left untreated.
Had 9 weeks of symptom free recovery and then went back to work part-time. Within a week and a half of returning to work at the end of June, I was back in hospital (Only for a day) with chest pain (4/10) of what I suspected to be a pulmonary embolism. Nothing was found.
Gave it another week and a half of rest at home and returned to work, part-time. Within a week and a half of returning to work, I was off-sick again. This time I was woken from sleep by flutter/afib that lasted a couple of hours and continued sporadically, together with some short-duration chest pain during the next two days. I was left physically shattered and was off work for another week and a half.
After this episode, at the beginning of August,I visited my General Practioner in medicine. I explained the situation to my General Practitioner and he requested fitting of a Holter monitor. But the National Health Service being short of resources the fitting appointment won't be until the beginning of September 2011. After reading some sources on the net, which indicated that very often the 24-hour holter monitor won't capture any abnormalities because of the random occurence of flutter and AF, I decided to purchase my own hand-held ECG machine + finger oxygen/pulse meter.
In the meantime, I had to return to work and the same happened again within a week and half, except this time the flutter and afib has continued on and off for a week, accompanied by some short duration chest pain (Relieved by taking increased aspirin dose) and I have been off work because it makes me feel so awful and drains all my strength.
Luckily, when this happened this time round I was able to capture the abnormal heart rythyms on an ECG trace using my own machine. Result !
This showed not only that I had a bradycardic (Slow) resting heart beat (averaging 45BPM, as low as 38 - Lance Armstrongs RHB was 32) whilst awake, but that, on occasions, I had flutter (Classic saw-tooth shaped wave on the ECG) and AF which on occasion broke through to the ventricles pushing the heart BPM up to 120. Strangely, flutter on its own didn't appear to push up the pulse rate.
After three weeks of use, I've now got about seventy readings now, spread throught-out the day, 10 of which show major rhythm abnormalities and most of the rest show the saw-tooth pattern of flutter.Most of these results have been e-mailed to my GP. It appears from these ECGs that I have been experiencing low amplitude flutter most of the day, without feeling it and that it is only when it intensifies is it that you notice the sensation. I've likened the sensation to Gambolling spring lambs/a vibrating tuning fork under your chest. No wonder, I've been feeling so bl**dy tired if I got near constant flutter in the background.
No doubt, if I'd have waited for the NHS to find this out, I'd have waited for ever - confirmed by my later reading of the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine (One of the standard crammer texts for UK medical students) which states that only 10% of Holter tests show any of the heart symptoms complained of by the patient, and of the remaining 90%, only 20% show symptoms and these are usually unrelated to the patients original complaint and the remaining 70% show nothing. So, hardly an efficient diagnostic technique.
The availability of the ECGs to me means I have been able to do some elementary comparisons of the timing of the components of the beats and their shape with various standards. And the results of this analysis has suggested some possible causes e.g.
My PR interval has a duration of 333milliseconds - the standard is 200ms - references state that this suggests first degree heart block i.e. a nerve conduction problem.
My QRS complex has a duration of less than 67 milliseconds - the standard is 120ms -references state that this suggests an atrial or junctional rhythm focus i.e. the heart beat is originating away from thenormal place, the Sinus node of the heart.
My QT interval is 600milliseconds - the standard is 450ms - references suggest that this could suggest a susceptibility to tachycardia.
My T wave is biphasic, i.e. it has a negative (Inverted) component below the Iso electric line - references suggest this is evidence of a recent MI - T wave inversions are supposed to right themselves within a few weeks of an MI.
When the flutter episodes first happened they usually occurred at night, or just before I woke in the morning. Now they are happening at any time during the day, but especially following a doze after a meal.
I've also notice that they are provoked by certain food and drink - coffee, cheese and alcohol.
Reading the literature there's one shed-load of possible causes of flutter/AF ranging from any form of heart disease you care to name to lung problems, problems with the osephagus, problems with the vagus nerve and parasympathetic nervous system, endocrine problems, specifically thryroid and even problems with the neck.
With my history of idiopathic syncope, pre-pubescent Raynaud's, childhood bronchospasms and pneumonia, neck injury from a car accident, and familial heart disease on both sides of the family, I suspect that it will give the medics more than enough problems determining exactly what's going on.
Nick
I just started going through the same from the end of July 2011. I know how physically and psychologically wearing flutter/afib can be.
My background is that I had first couple of MIs in February and April. The second landed me in hospital where I underwent angioplasty and stenting of the circumflex branch of the Left Anterior Descending artery which was totally occluded. Two further arteries on the left of the heart which were only partially occluded were left untreated.
Had 9 weeks of symptom free recovery and then went back to work part-time. Within a week and a half of returning to work at the end of June, I was back in hospital (Only for a day) with chest pain (4/10) of what I suspected to be a pulmonary embolism. Nothing was found.
Gave it another week and a half of rest at home and returned to work, part-time. Within a week and a half of returning to work, I was off-sick again. This time I was woken from sleep by flutter/afib that lasted a couple of hours and continued sporadically, together with some short-duration chest pain during the next two days. I was left physically shattered and was off work for another week and a half.
After this episode, at the beginning of August,I visited my General Practioner in medicine. I explained the situation to my General Practitioner and he requested fitting of a Holter monitor. But the National Health Service being short of resources the fitting appointment won't be until the beginning of September 2011. After reading some sources on the net, which indicated that very often the 24-hour holter monitor won't capture any abnormalities because of the random occurence of flutter and AF, I decided to purchase my own hand-held ECG machine + finger oxygen/pulse meter.
In the meantime, I had to return to work and the same happened again within a week and half, except this time the flutter and afib has continued on and off for a week, accompanied by some short duration chest pain (Relieved by taking increased aspirin dose) and I have been off work because it makes me feel so awful and drains all my strength.
Luckily, when this happened this time round I was able to capture the abnormal heart rythyms on an ECG trace using my own machine. Result !
This showed not only that I had a bradycardic (Slow) resting heart beat (averaging 45BPM, as low as 38 - Lance Armstrongs RHB was 32) whilst awake, but that, on occasions, I had flutter (Classic saw-tooth shaped wave on the ECG) and AF which on occasion broke through to the ventricles pushing the heart BPM up to 120. Strangely, flutter on its own didn't appear to push up the pulse rate.
After three weeks of use, I've now got about seventy readings now, spread throught-out the day, 10 of which show major rhythm abnormalities and most of the rest show the saw-tooth pattern of flutter.Most of these results have been e-mailed to my GP. It appears from these ECGs that I have been experiencing low amplitude flutter most of the day, without feeling it and that it is only when it intensifies is it that you notice the sensation. I've likened the sensation to Gambolling spring lambs/a vibrating tuning fork under your chest. No wonder, I've been feeling so bl**dy tired if I got near constant flutter in the background.
No doubt, if I'd have waited for the NHS to find this out, I'd have waited for ever - confirmed by my later reading of the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine (One of the standard crammer texts for UK medical students) which states that only 10% of Holter tests show any of the heart symptoms complained of by the patient, and of the remaining 90%, only 20% show symptoms and these are usually unrelated to the patients original complaint and the remaining 70% show nothing. So, hardly an efficient diagnostic technique.
The availability of the ECGs to me means I have been able to do some elementary comparisons of the timing of the components of the beats and their shape with various standards. And the results of this analysis has suggested some possible causes e.g.
My PR interval has a duration of 333milliseconds - the standard is 200ms - references state that this suggests first degree heart block i.e. a nerve conduction problem.
My QRS complex has a duration of less than 67 milliseconds - the standard is 120ms -references state that this suggests an atrial or junctional rhythm focus i.e. the heart beat is originating away from thenormal place, the Sinus node of the heart.
My QT interval is 600milliseconds - the standard is 450ms - references suggest that this could suggest a susceptibility to tachycardia.
My T wave is biphasic, i.e. it has a negative (Inverted) component below the Iso electric line - references suggest this is evidence of a recent MI - T wave inversions are supposed to right themselves within a few weeks of an MI.
When the flutter episodes first happened they usually occurred at night, or just before I woke in the morning. Now they are happening at any time during the day, but especially following a doze after a meal.
I've also notice that they are provoked by certain food and drink - coffee, cheese and alcohol.
Reading the literature there's one shed-load of possible causes of flutter/AF ranging from any form of heart disease you care to name to lung problems, problems with the osephagus, problems with the vagus nerve and parasympathetic nervous system, endocrine problems, specifically thryroid and even problems with the neck.
With my history of idiopathic syncope, pre-pubescent Raynaud's, childhood bronchospasms and pneumonia, neck injury from a car accident, and familial heart disease on both sides of the family, I suspect that it will give the medics more than enough problems determining exactly what's going on.
Nick
Just got out of hospital after similar symptoms to yours, but they managed to catch mine while I was there and it showed up on the ECG.
Definitely go and see a heart specialist - they can fix this. Try find one that has an interest in arrhythmia.
You won't be able to fix it yourself, so get off the internet and get it solved!
Definitely go and see a heart specialist - they can fix this. Try find one that has an interest in arrhythmia.
You won't be able to fix it yourself, so get off the internet and get it solved!
Same for today. I woke after 2.5 hours of sleep, with tachycardia and felt my pulse strongly from my neck (behind and sides). No idea if it is the vagus nerve or something else, but if I DO NOT wake up for the tachycardia, it turns to flutter/afib which happened few days ago.
The cause is my neck or something. Extra doctor visit today. Hoping for quick X-Ray.
The cause is my neck or something. Extra doctor visit today. Hoping for quick X-Ray.
Sigh. I managed to sleep less than 2.5 hours. I fell asleep instantly, but woke up to a ~100ish pulse that I could clearly feel through my neck. It was steady, but quick. No flutter or afib. I also had a feeling of pressure around neck from the back and sides. What on earth can cause this?
As soon as I rose up, it started to ease up, but I´d really need more sleep.
As soon as I rose up, it started to ease up, but I´d really need more sleep.
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