Atrial Fibrillation events after PM

Hi all, I've had my PM since May 2013 and thought all was well until yesterday when my cardiologist called to say I showed some atrial fibrillation events on my readings. I got the PM because I had intermittent atrial fibrillation events so I am shocked to hear that ...they're back. The doc prescribed Multaq 400 2xday. I looked up the drug and it is pretty serious stuff. I'm out of town and we are doing all this on the phone. Anyone else have this situation?

2 Comments

Try this..

by Duke999 - 2013-10-11 08:10:54

Hi Margy,
You might look into magnesium supplement. Magnesium
is a "miracle" mineral that is needed by many parts of our body, including the heart. The electrical function of our hearts is quite something. At the cellular level, our heart cells need certain minerals and electrolytes to function properly. Somewhere along the line, our hearts (yours, mine and pacemaker club members here) somehow went wrong. You can question all the day long like I did for a long time, how the electrical system of our hearts went wrong and others don't, no matter how well I ate, took care myself or exercise. And I still don't get it. It is what it is. And we got what we got. And we have to live with it. Anyway, back to magnesium. After I had my PM implanted for bradycardia, I refused to take any meds that my EP prescribed, so I settle with supplements. Before I go further, I must say that I'm not a doctor and by no means I'm not recommending anyone to NOT take the meds that doctor prescribes. I'm only sharing with you my personal experience. I'm using magnesium taurate made by Cardiovascular Research. For more reading, you can google research or go to www.a-fib.com by Dr. Steve S. Ryan (Roys, another member of this site from Australia is a proponent of Dr. Ryan). Anyway, I hope I steer you in the right direction that can help you. I wish you well. Good luck. Please keep me posted on how it turns out for you if you decide to try it. Have a nice day.

Duke

Misunderstanding?

by golden_snitch - 2013-10-11 11:10:28

Hi!

I think there must be a misunderstanding: A pacemaker cannot do anything about atrial fibrillation. Pacemakers are designed to treat bradycardia, no tachy-arrhythmias. There are some pacemakers that have special features to reduce or suppress atrial fibrillation, but from what I have heard those features don't really work well in most cases. I know that there is one member here in whom it works, but that's really the only success story that I have ever heard.

Now, there are two reasons why a pacemaker and atrial fibrillation can go together:

1. You are a "slow fibber" --> your atrial fibrillation leads to heart rates that are too slow (bradycardia). While a pacemaker will not stop the afib, it can prevent bradycardia by pacing your ventricles at a steady and appropriate rate.

2. You had the "ablate & pace" approach --> because your afib didn't respond to any other kind of treatment (drugs, cardioversion, catheter ablation), your AV-node was ablated and a pacemaker put in to take over its job. In this case, the atria will continue fibrillating, but your ventricles will be paced so that you no longer feel that very irregular and often too fast rhythm.

Don't know what your doctor told you why you need the pacemaker. Sounds like he didn't make clear that the pacemaker will not stop the afib.

Best wishes
Inga

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