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Gordon - well said. I think the safety blanket approach using whatever means is worth considering if one is bothered to an extreme by anxiety. I didn't have to go the drug route but found the use of L-theanine to be all I needed to calm down - I still use it for anxious days. It's the psychological aspect of afib that is the problem. We have no control over it and we don'tby Jackie - AFIBBERS FORUM
Steve, We all know exactly how you feel. It took 4 years for me to turn my anxiety around to loathing the AF and feeling indignant about it hitting me! A good "how dare you come at me now" works better for me than waiting to die with it! Lets face it, we all know it won't kill us (Drs. tell us that often enough) so I tried to treat it as an unwelcome nuisance and it works.by Sue Bowden - AFIBBERS FORUM
Steve, I could be wrong, but I think much of your obscessing comes from the fact that you feel horrible most of the time. You are right about while NSR is great, how great can it be when you are so miserable. Is there any other antiarrythmic you can tolerate better or maybe it is time to just start thinking albation or minimaze or whatever. And yes, even after successful treatment you still woby Cynthia - AFIBBERS FORUM
Hello Steve, I agree with all who have responded and might I just add, from experience, that your body has a better chance of coping with fatigue and anxiety if you can use a non drug approach. Anxiety is 'just' anxiety - it's a mind thing - and it's the body's reaction to it that causes the problem. Of course, drug induced anxiety (ie. the drug itself causing alteraby Emmie - AFIBBERS FORUM
Steve, i am on cardizem, which i think is a beta blocker. it keeps my heart rate down in NSR to prevent it from going up and possibly jumping into AF. the only side effect i have is that it makes you feel slugish. a little harder to wake up in the morning because of deeper sleeping with the lower heart rate. maybe you should check it out? no anxiety at all from it either... hope this helpsby James - AFIBBERS FORUM
Woops, I misread, reading too quickly today. Whenever I see "...olol" I think atenolol. Sorry!! KGby Kagey - AFIBBERS FORUM
Dear Steve, Zoloft works great for me. I was up to 200 mg and now that I am 7 months post my successful ablation, I am down to 100 mg under my internist's care. I hope to slowly be taken down to no Zoloft. Good luck to you, Pamela Sueby Pamela Sue - AFIBBERS FORUM
Steve: Peggy said it right so the question becomes how bad is the anxiety and what do you do about it? If it's the panic type of anxiety it can exacerbate the fib as the adrenaline stimulates the system overall; and therefore, I believe must be treated. Some of us feel that the occasional benzodiazepene, (Xanax, Klonopin, Ativan, et.al.) slow the system down enough that even the fib was hby Gordon - AFIBBERS FORUM
Kagey, I am not on atenolol i am on Sotalol 80 morning and evening. It makes me feel off balance and crappy at times. i hate the feeling. Thanks for you interest and comments.by steve Daley - AFIBBERS FORUM
Agree with Peggy, Everyone is afflicted with anxiety, period. It's in the very essence of AF, because AF is so poorly understood. Question, why such a dose of atenolol? Atenolol is not an antiarrhythmic, and is usually prescribed in AFib only for those who have to keep their heart rate low during the time they are in AF. You've been in nsr for 16 months, so maybe the atenolol is forby Kagey - AFIBBERS FORUM
Steve, what you should ask is if anybody does NOT get anxiety with afib. It is guaranteed to scare the dickens out of anybody. PeggyMby PeggyM - AFIBBERS FORUM
Hi everyone I just wonder how many people have experienced anxiety with their afib. Doctors dont realize what it does to people. I have experienced it and have taken xanex and klonopin low doses for the anxiety and still feel not on the top of my game to say. I am on 80mg of sotolol morning and evening and feel like a piece of crap at times. I have been in nsr for 16 months but feeling like cby steve Daley - AFIBBERS FORUM
All, I do understand people's apprehension about SSRIs and it does make me a little nervous about being on them for a long time. I am on the lowest dose you can get. As I said in my posts, I do not feel ANY difference in myself taking the 20mg of paxil....absolutely none....no suicide thoughts and I never felt depressed before anyway. I feel that it is just someting to do with my gut and tby Ed - AFIBBERS FORUM
Hello gregg, Others will no doubt answer your question re: aspirin, so I will only talk about my own regime/experience. Although a bit younger than your relative, (I'm 60 this year, female and in permanent AF since Sept. 2004) I replaced the warfarin/coumadin with 6000FU daily of nattokinase, as I wasn't keen on the rat poison either! I've been taking nattokinase (a product madeby Emmie - AFIBBERS FORUM
MIchelle, anxiety isn't afib. Anxiety may trigger afib, but they are different things. Calm yourself down. Prayer and meditation help. Just chill out. 18 months without afib is a major victory. Cherish that. Tell yourself if you get another afib episode and then go another 18 months, that is better than 99% of the afibbers in the world. You're doing great. Quit worrying! Johnby john - AFIBBERS FORUM
If there is one thing that we should have learned from participating on this forum, people are INDIVIDUALS who both experience and respond to symptoms individualistically or differently. Although "science" likes people to conform to its prescribed models, in fact, one size does not fit all, whether it is how symptomatic one is or in response to medications. For example, there areby Carol A. - AFIBBERS FORUM
I agree with Toni and Russ. This forum is no place to criticize another members description of how ectopics affect him/her. Everybody is different. People are looking for support and empathy on this BB. A lot of the members are vulnerable while dealing with this affliction and jumping all over them about how they feel during various abnormal heart rhythms is not right. Lets respect the postsby Keith - AFIBBERS FORUM
SO WHAT WIL?? MY ECTOPICS ARE AWFUL Far worse the my afib or flutter which i feel is pretty bad. I've had a fib on sotalol that was an absolute breeze compared to my ectopics. My ectopics stop me in my tracks. Nearly knock me over, they are just dreadful horrendous things. one a day is far too many for me. And yes i have had days of over TWENTY THOUSAND A DAY BEFORE I EVER GOT A FIB. WITH ANby MARK ROBINSON - AFIBBERS FORUM
Successful ablation last October - but very frequent ectopics (hundreds a day) ever since. Tried all the usual - k,mg,coq10,taurine etc - to no avail. I was very ill last year with myocarditis - 6 emergency admissions to hospital and all that - lucky to still be here (and getting better all the time). To cut a long story short my GP reckoned that I was suffering from anxiety after the trauma ofby martin - AFIBBERS FORUM
Arnold,What good, sensible advice. Honestly, Michelle, recognizing anxiety attacks for what they are is step one in conquering this scary phenomenon. I used to suffer from them before the Afib started. It got to the point that I wouldn't leave the house unless absolutely necessary. Finally after a particularly bad attack in a grocery store, I left my cart where it was, drove to the doctoby Darla Shehadeh - AFIBBERS FORUM
Thank you, all, for your very helpful helpful replies! So, it seems maybe sotalol is as good a choice as any for a starting point. I know I have to to something ... yesterday they had me stop Toprol and Verapamil and I spent all night in afib with rate up to 150 ... probably due to anxiety as much as anything. At least once I took a shower this morning it's gone, of course leaving me withby thom - AFIBBERS FORUM
Hi Pamela Sue: I just looked at one of your old posts: "I was asymptomatic. The majority of the time I did not know I was in afib. I have been dealing with afib for over 5 years. I tried several drugs, some worked for a year or two, then they all stopped working. So, I went to CC this past July and had an ablation. I feel fiver years younger now. I have soooooo much energy. I was so use toby Doug Symonds - AFIBBERS FORUM
Near the end of a Jan 11 post on "New Afib..." by Jim (sorry, Jim we took your post away from your topic, but for a good cause), Bill Driscoll, Peggy, Jackie and I have been yapping briefly about how nice it would be to have something like "The List" to which we could all immediately refer newcomers - those who, like all of us, have SO many difficult questions in the early weeby Kagey - AFIBBERS FORUM
Hello Luke - " It would flood the system if I asked them all at once." Nah, - it wouldn't. Feel free to 'flood' away! There are so many caring people here with helpful suggestions and above all, compassion and understanding, that you'll always get a response. No-one is offended by a newcomer asking questions and everyone here understands that we all need toby Emmie - AFIBBERS FORUM
Jim I too got A fib at about the age of 56 this forum has helped immensely and I have been afib free for 1 year and about 4 months. But I have done the following 1. Stopped caffeine, alcohol, decongestents, ice cold carbonated sodas 2. I have researched the best EPs in the area and since i am in philly the Univ. of Pa. is in the top 10 in the world. So I have an EP there named Dr. David Lin.by steve Daley - AFIBBERS FORUM
Hi, I have paroxysmal afib and when started taking my insulin at night at the request of my regular doc about 1/2 hour later I got terrible ectopic beats all night. Was driving me nuts. Went to my cardio and he put me on an event monitor for a month-had to call in every time. I was ok but it drove me to the point of having to start anti-anxiety meds. After the month was over my cardio had noby Denise - AFIBBERS FORUM
People are different with regard to > Tolerance for stress > Anxiety reactivity > Depressive tendencies ... to name a few characteristics that are relevant to our "mental" reactions to AF. People differ in terms of their genetic potential for these factors, and in the skills or other coping behaviors that they have developed to deal with them. There are of course major diffby Dick - AFIBBERS FORUM
Ed - So glad to see you had a positive consult with Dr. Callans. First, I'd definitely ask that he do the ablation. I was 67 when I decided upon ablation because the events had escallated to daily or every other day and were long even though I was using 300 mg. of flecanide daily. I had to go twice within six weeks for cardioversion because of lengthy events. I had vowed not to go tby Jackie - AFIBBERS FORUM
I have two questions tonight for the group. One on alchohol - which I listed separately. This is the more serious one. After a visit to U of Penn David Callans, I decide to go on his waiting list for ablation procedure (at least 6 month wait). In the mean time, I decided to try meds - Flec with Corgard. Callans said the drugs only work 50% of the time, and if this does not work, others are nby Ed B - AFIBBERS FORUM
Keith ~ I can relate to your situation. When my afib first began it didn't interfere much with working; but after a year or so, I found that since I worked by appointment with patients, I became unreliable because I never knew when my heart would prevent me from getting to work. I hated calling in to say cancel the day and while patients are understanding, they still become annoyed when apby Jackie - AFIBBERS FORUM