AF at my checkup

I am 32 years old and i had a pacemaker the last year because of a 3rd degree heart block since my birth.At my scheduled paecemaker checkup my doc informed me that my pacemekr had recoreded many AF episodes. I was shocked because i hadnt felt anything strange an also i was sorry for my bad luck. He told me that I had to take medication for the AF and aspinrin because of the risk of a stroke. The didn't seem to pay mach attention and the whole appointment lasted for about 10 minutes. After that and I asked the opinion of another doctor. Well the second doc seemed to be very carefull and she put her self out of the trouble to open each episode and "read" the electrocardiogram the pacemaker had stored. She noticed that those episodes had nothing to do with AF but they were some irregular heartbeats and because there was not any other category to be classified the pacemaker put those episodes to AF episodes. Has anybody a similar experience. The thing is that I am still very frightened and I dont know who is right and who is wrong. The only certain thing is that the first doc didn't open the episodes to see what has been recorded.

4 Comments

hmmm

by Tracey_E - 2013-05-05 10:05:20

I, too, had fast episodes that the pm picked up as afib but when we looked closer it was just fast, not fibrillating, usually during exercise so we know what caused it. We did not treat it until it got bad enough to affect my ability to work out, then I went on a low dose beta blocker to keep my rate down.

You are young, you have no history or symptoms of afib or anything else atrial wrong, the doc that called it afib didn't look at all the recordings... I'd go with door #2!

You could ask for a Holter, that will tell a lot more about what your heart is doing minute by minute. If you are in afib at all, it will tell you for sure. I'd probably do that, if you truly are in afib then you need the meds.

Holter monitor

by golden_snitch - 2013-05-06 03:05:44

Hi!

I'm with Tracey. And I would never ever trust the pacemaker data alone, I'd always get a holter to confirm the diagnosis. Also, even if you do have AF, you do not need to take anti-arrhythmic drugs when you don't have any symptoms. You need to take blood thinning drugs due to the risk of blood clots, but if this arrhythmia is not causing any symptoms, treatment for the arrhythmia itself is not a must. There are some people who have permanent AF, but don't feel it. They're on blood thinners, but no antiarrhythmic drugs. Oh, and Aspirin is not enough when you have AF. You'll rather need something like Warfarin.

But first of all I'd get the diagnosis confirmed by holter monitor. With AF it's also important to see how long these episodes are. My pacer used to record many episodes that each just lasted for seconds or a minute or so - that's nothing that needs to be treated, in my opinion. I even had AF during one of my EP studies, but it lasted just a couple of minutes or so, and stopped on its own. EP said we'll consider treatment should the number and length of episodes increase, not sooner.

Best wishes

Inga

AF and Holter monitoring

by ranita - 2013-05-06 08:05:36

Hi!! First of all thanks for answering!! It's very nice to know that you are not alone and there are people you can share your worryings. I had a 48hours holter and didn't show anything unusual and of course no AF episodes! The maximum episode lasted 1minute and 21seconds, and i had approximately 90 episodes in a 6 month period. I also had 2 heart ultrasounds and everything is ok with my heart. And the doc told me that I am not in a high risk group (my blood test are like a 16nth years old child) and I wouldn't need aspirin even if i had AF. Also the second doctor made some changings at my pm's function. From DDD she changed it to DDDR and some other things like the upper and the lower level(she gave me that paper which mentions all the adgustments) and i think that i feel much better, especially in aerobic. But because of all that situation I am very stressed and my worries never end. I feel sometimes pains at my left side of chest and sometimes some strange hertbeats. I' ve started to worry wether my leads ar ok and at their position.

stick with the second dr

by Tracey_E - 2013-05-06 10:05:26

I really like the sound of your second dr, very thorough and conservative with meds. If you've had all those tests, I think you can be comfortable with her diagnosis.

If your leads were not ok, it would have shown up when you had the pm interrogated.

Strange beats from time to time is a fact of life for most of us. I tune it out.

You know you're wired when...

You play MP3 files on your pacer.

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