Not Dead Yet!
Theme and variation on the a-fib story. More than 30 years ago I was diagnosed with a-fib but it was an unusual pattern, I was irregular at rest but went normal when moving. Just carried on with life (and I was a runner) for 25+ years and was OK until the whole pattern changed about 7 years ago (leading me to early retirement as it changed my perspective about work and I had 'enough'$) I started having petty serious a-fib, the bongo drums in the chest and fast (175-200+) HR (my resting HR is more like 55, sometimes below 50, when I was a serious runner), tried rate & rhythm meds, not effective, this was happening about once a week, so in Sept 2013 I had my first ablation procedure, the two cuts to the aorta in the groin & a wire in on a vein in the wrist, 6.5 hours later it was done and things got better although coumidan and aspirin required daily. I went just short of the 3 month non episode period and had more events, one big one that could not get my HR down below 175 for 4 hours with many meds and ER Dr later advised no defib machine use as she thought I would not survive it. And the holter monitor indicates asymptomatic events as well as atrial flutter. So in late Feb of this year I had my second ablation 'procedure' (DW prefers that term to surgery). Similar incisions and 6 hours long but totally new technology, instead of the catheters having cameras the new ones are much thinner and are viewed by magnetic resonance, Dr is not even in the room, could be across the country or the world. He blows up a 3D image on a screen and navigates and the sensor & burners can pivot 360 degrees. I am feeling great although I remember that I have to go 3 or 4 months without an a-fib event before declaring 'success' and the hope is I can then go off comuidan which I have been on for too long now.
As to heart monitors, I have a Polar sports watch and it is very good for showing HR, max, average and time in training zones. There are several free iPhone apps, I use Argus, which use the iPhone camera to read HR, these are not as convenient as the sports watch but I always have it with me and the optical reading actually shows heart patterns, some really interesting patterns in a-fib more info than just HR. I expect the Apple watch would be similar if reading optically.
I tell the Dr and others that I have a PhD in my heart, I kept a spread sheet for a couple years with daily meds, blood test results, HR incident including frequency, intensity and duration. Dr looked at them and prefers the info from various monitors I have worn at different times.
The head MD gave a good description of the cause of the most common forms of a-fib, its simply age. Just as our skin wrinkles with age so the heart does too, and the wrinkles disturb the flow (like laminar flow) of electrons across the heart. If we didn't age then there would be a lot less a-fib. I think the numbers are that one in eight males over 65 will have a-fib although many may not require treatment, so its pretty common and as more is learned about it better diagnosis and treatment will develop.
Interesting travel a-fib stories like hitting 176 HR while climbing to the Tigers Nest Monastery in Bhutan, talked to a German traveler and he said, "Oh no, dat could not be tru, you would be dead"
Not dead yet. (You know where that reference comes from)
