Windyshores, I was put on metoprolol and a statin right from the moment I met my cardiologist for the first time. The first time I felt I needed help, and went to the ER, they gave me a bolus of 25 mg of metoprolol, but it didn't convert me. They then tried to cardiovert, but that failed as well. I went home with a reduce rate, but still in AF. I converted some time later that day (I had gone to the ER at around 1900 hrs and was released around 0300). About a year later, after my index ablation, I was in and out of the ER several times, and I usually reverted to NSR after several hours on a gurney. Those times, they only gave me extra metoprolol once, and on that occasion they were about to release me having failed a cardioversion, but I reverted moments before they kicked me out.

My BP was always normal, or very close. Nothing they felt they needed to mention. I only felt short of breath the second time I paroxysmally went in into AF, about six weeks after the first time. I had to double over and told the triage nurse I wasn't doing well. She hurried me into the ER. All other occasions, at home or at the ER, it was only the chest thumping and the anxiety that ganged up on me and had me worried. Weird, but that is my story. Just the one time short of breath in perhaps 10 episodes that lasted more than a few minutes.

And despite what Our Friend might insist is the case, I don't fault you for a pico-second for not being able to abide how it makes you feel, and for hying yourself to the closest ER. Done it meself, an I would hasten to do it again. And like you, I did ask twice, separate occasions, if I was doing the right thing. I was told unequivocally that I absolutely did the right thing by going to the ER. An arrythmia is serious business.