Afib cause Defib firing

I have been getting Afib actitivity lately.

Last week my device fired three times in two minutes. I was told by the doctors my firing was caused by Afib activity causing my lower chambers to kick in to keep up.

The device program fired to correct the situation.

Never had this happen before, and I was wondering if anyone has gone through this situation.

Thanks Gene

2 Comments

It's called "afib with RVR"

by jeroling - 2013-05-16 08:05:57

Atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular response. Shock is not indicated for atrial fib. This is not good! Shocks increase mortality. Either way you and your defibrillator need to be re-evaluated. Are you on a beta blocker? Can they increase your dectection rate &/or increase detection time? Most newer devices have discriminators to help rule out tachycardias from afib.
And are you on blood thinner for the atrial fib to prevent stroke?

Yikes!

by Many Blessings - 2013-05-16 11:05:46

Gene,

First of all, I'm so sorry this is happening to you. I'm sure it's a scary thing to have happen.

I have a CRT-P and have chronic A-fib. My EP doc would have really liked to put in an ICD as well (because I have CHF & cardiomyopathy), but because of the chronic A-fib (100% of the time) he said absolutely not!

His reason for "absolutely not", was because he said the ICD would not be able to tell the difference between A-fib and life threatening arrhythmias that the ICD is programed to fire and correct. He said it would be too dangerous to have the ICD firing all of the time because of the A-fib.

I think you need to discuss this with your EP doc, Cardio doc, and ICD tech as soon as possible! I really, really do.

I hope others out here can give you better advice, but I'm with jeroling, I don't think it's a good thing. Hopefully, some of the site old timers out here will be able to help you out and give you some suggestions.

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