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@gloaming I 'enjoyed' reading all of your response - so much great information. I had one isolated AF incident 11 years ago, was cardioverted in the ER. Took Eliquis for a year, did not even need a heart rate med. Fast forward to a month ago. I had schedule right total hip replacement. I woke in recovery feeling 'off.' Not just nausea from the general anesthesia, but fluttery, short of breath, etc. After about an hour, my heart rate started to climb. I immediately told the nurse I was in AF and to do an EKG. She was not super responsive, until my HR got above 150, then an anesthesiologist showed up, started barking order, gave a bolus of metoprolol and an amiodarone drip. I felt much better for about 15 minutes, and then I felt like I needed to vomit and I coded. Compressions brought me back. Over the next 2 days in the hospital, I converted back into sinus rhythm on my own. Now I am faced with figuring out my future with AF. I do have sleep apnea, and at times, even propped up in bed (I have to be on my back due to the hip recovery for another couple of weeks), I wake feeling so claustrophobic and gasping. I am 'eventing' more times per hour. I wore a monitor for 2 weeks, no results back yet. EP cardiology appt is not for another 6 weeks. I am taking time-release metoprolol and Eliquis. The metoprolol makes me so short of breath when I do my hip PT exercises. I am 68 and certainly feeling my mortality (and a very sore chest). Echo done in the hospital did not show a need for ablation, but I would prefer to have the EP review and discuss. Any advice or thoughts? Sorry to hijack this thread, but I have similar issues.
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@lucyvt Many EP's won't even meet with you until you have other 'issues' cleared up or under control. It's the same with the other specialists: my ophthalmologist referred me to an eye surgeon because I have vitreomacular traction syndrome....the thin membrane lining everyone's eye shrinks with age and pulls away from the retina uneventfully. In some, a few cases, the membrane sticks to the retina, but it still wants to shrink away and move toward the front of the eyeball...all inside. This traction can tear the retina. But my ophthalmologist said she was certain he would not seem me until I had cataract surgery in that eye, and she was right. I did meet with him, but he asked me to get the cataract removed, by my ophthalmologist, first. I learned my EP would not deal with me until I was healthier, had no unmanaged ischemia (lack of oxygen to organs, but chiefly the heart), was not an alcoholic (minimal use of alcohol all my life), didn't smoke, etc. So, I had to have numerous tests to rule out ischemia. He felt that trying to fix AF that was probably due to an unhealthy heart was a waste of resources, and I can't argue otherwise.
So, Lucy (sorry to meet you here, for this..., but it's still nice to meet you), it might have been the anesthetic, it might have been a wee bit of stress on your Vagus nerve if a TEE was administered or a lot of burning was done near it...? Or the stress of the entire experience, and its subsequent discomfort, might have reduced your 'Vagal tone' (you can google that and what it means, especially with respect to AF patients), or it was a drug sensitivity, or just a temporary reduction in the drugs your system was used to getting regularly but that were suspended for 24 hours or longer until your ablation was over......just guessing at any/all of these. And yup, it could very well have been a rise in AHI events while you were 'out'. Anesthetists always ask me if I have apnea (they would routinely ask that of any male with a bit of a paunch whom they know is over 50), and I tell them what my cm of H20 setting is on my machine. I don' recall ever awakening with a mask over my face, so I must not have shown any hypoxia or struggles to breath during any of my ablations, two of them now.
Monitor results usually take a week to three weeks, depending on the outfit receiving the device and its recording, and then getting it to the person responsible for debriefing you and prescribing a way forward. You may even have them by the time you read this.
Oh, I just realized: it might even be that your prescribed PAP treatment has gotten out of date and that you need a revision, maybe even monitoring to see if your needs have changed...it's possible, and this is why you're having events.
If you are interested in learning more from fellow PAP travelers, head on over to apneaboard.com and read in. You can even use their OSCAR freeware to get a lot more useful information from your CPAP machine's onboard SD card....if yours has one. I have been using OSCAR for about six years now...it's great, free, and it's safe.
A much smaller and less busy site is afibbers.org run by two fellas, one of them a retired EMT who has had six ablations. There's tons of great anecdotal and published paper links to be found, if you'd care to go over and take a look.