Meds to stop Afib

I take 50mg of flecainide twice a day, 12 hours apart and it has helped control afib for me.

I also take Metropolol and Xarelto.

Perhaps you can speak to your physician who can guide you about which drugs would be helpful for your specific type of afib. And also please speak with your pharmacist for backup information.

May God bless every breath you take.

Hi Martin. Thank you for your response. That’s a little scary to hear you had a stroke given your mild and infrequent a-fib episodes and that you were on meds. I hope you’ve fully recovered from it and have seen your last one.

Each of these posts have been excellent information ... will make a major difference when I see a specialist (EP) for the first time in about 6 weeks ... have been seeing a cardiologist at a highly reputable medical facility; over time had two cardioversions with success that eventually faded after several months each time although a fib returned in each case after a different major health event. EP referred by the cardiologist.

Thanks, @californiazebra. My stroke was "small" and relieved in hours by skipping a couple of doses of my anticoagulant, allowing the blood to clot in the area damaged by the stroke. Since then, I have had to deal with a bit of vertical instability when I stand or walk, but that's become habitual over the last few years. I take special care not to turn or "duck" carelessly, and that keeps me stable and unthreatened by falling. Martin

I am on metoprolol and eliquis

I want to be off these and all drugs as soon as possible. I saw both my parents on these and similar drugs for afib. Over the course of 15 years the drugs destroyed their livers and kidneys. They basically died of toxic poisoning. For myself, I want them to do the ablation. The success rate is 87% over all. I believe I am a good candidate. .. EP this Wednesday.

Are you a candidate for the Watchman? Medication side effects are so very scary.

My understanding AFIB isn't cured, just controlled... I may be wrong...

There are some uncomfortable truths about AF, at least for the heavy majority of cases (maybe not all, just a very great many of them):

As maryahsj says above, AF is not cured. It can be managed, placed under control, mitigated....whichever words work for the reader....but it is never cured once your heart establishes that particular arrhythmia. The reason is that the heart builds a disordered electrical distribution which cannot be corrected. Instead, much like putting a stent in a stenosed artery, or like a tumor of any kind can be excised, the fact remains that the disorder came about due to changes in the body. Even if one has a successful catheter ablation, the various lesions, once they scar, block the unwanted signals. They don't stop the signals from happening, they just block them, at which the heart returns to NSR. If a surgeon could somehow fix all the fibrosis blocking the signals, and restore the atrial endothelium to its previous state, the atrium would immediately commence fibrillating again. The heart still has the disordered electrical distribution.

The other established truth, although I admit that it has proven contentious on this forum, is that it is widely considered to be a progressive disorder. * If it is not controlled, it has a high probability of leading to other conditions such as atrial enlargement and heart failure. That is why on my other forum, we strongly encourage newly diagnosed sufferers of a heavy burden of PACs or AF to seek out a skilled electrophysiologist quickly to see whether they are good candidates for catheter ablation. AF will often progress to more advanced forms which are more difficult to treat and that can lead to early death. Note that this takes several years, not several weeks, so there's no need to panic. Again, consult a competent physician about your case.

* https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2212540

Let me begin by saying- I of course follow my docs direction…but I also question everything and learn as much as I can. Many times doctors are just following the guide lines they learned in school and don’t keep up with published studies. So, all the reading I have been doing has taught me a fair amount. I questioned the EP about watchman and ablation. All together this is what I gather…..

1). First, ablation is not a fix. It isn’t even permanent. Within a few years the Afib is back and another ablation(?) would be needed. “Few years” is too vague for me. Does this concur with your experience? How long did ablation work for you? Does it make sense to do this? Especially considering the next ……..

2). If you have no other co morbidities your chance of a blood clot from Afib are vanishingly small. Study in the New England journal of medicine (2014)found that without any other health issues untreated Afib has less than a 5% chance of a stoke. And, Afib by itself, did not lead to heart failure, attacks, etc. in the group without risk factors (age, obese, diabetes, metabolic disorders, smoking, drinking, illegal drugs, etc). How this relates to me? One of the risk factors is age…their study was done in people below age 60. The study group did not have any medical interventions. I am 73. I have no other risk factors.

3). For people (like me) who only occasionally have an episode of Afib…there are drugs that will stop it….”pill in a pocket”. That only needs to be taken when an episode occurs. Anyone have experience with this? I have had undiagnosed Afib for at least 8 years. It has stayed the same all that time…one episode about one every 10 days or so…no discernible pattern. (This is the reason no doctor ever saw this happen…it is rare). Is this indicative?

4). There are studies that show the risks of Afib leading to any serious medical outcomes very low among the group that has no other risks. Even blood clots are a very low risk. Reading about peoples experiences here..there does seem to be a group that is like me…Afib untreated for a long time without ill effects. So, should I even care if I continue to have Afib episodes as long as the chance of blood clot is eliminated?

5). Finally….watchman. I am very determined to get off eliquis. Beside the bleeding and bruises, the cost is a budget buster. Watchman claims to reduce the risk of blood clots by 84%. 16% of having a stoke it still too much for me…but is it a low enough risk to rely on watchman….considering I only have that one risk factor (see paragraph 2 above). Anyone have any additional info on this?

6). Risk factor…age. If 60 is young enough so that age is not a factor. What about 73? What about 83? I hunted everywhere for a study (thanks Pubmed) and did not find any information to quantify relative risk/age. Anyone know of one?

Well…if anyone has more info or can point me to additional publications that would be great. Even your personal experience will be very helpful to me as I sit at the crossroads of deciding my next move. Thanks all!

PS. I read that study of NEJM 2023. No where did they separate out the people by risk factors like they did in the 2014 study. So, I conclude that likely with additional co mobilities…progression to more serious outcomes is obvious. But, what about no risk factors? It looks to me that in that study they didn’t collate that data. It is obvious to me that if you have say both diabetes and Afib, that together they get worse in time. Diabetes even without Afib is known to lead to heart disease.

Hi Katiekateny,

Love and agree with your your comments! I am 77 year old man, with history of occasional heart palps including, I suspect, short runs of undiagnosed AFib all my life. Otherwise, always quite active and healthy. Diagnosed with AFib from Holter monitor about two years ago. At that time, after preliminary tests for the medication, I was prescribed 50 mg Flecainide twice daily and 25 mg metoprolol succinate once daily. Since then, have reduced metoprolol dosage by one half and plan on same with Flecainide soon, eventually to PIP. Cardiologist from the beginning suggested that taking an anticoagulant was up to me but fully supports my decision to decline taking it. That’s because I have no co-morbidities—and age, after all, is just a number. Since diagnosis, I have tweaked my lifestyle slightly by eliminating alcohol (but absolutely not eliminating coffee!) and eating strictly a plant-based diet and exercising vigorously and regularly with combo of bicycle or lap swim or fast walking or strength and balance exercises a couple hours per day. I feel fine except for the mild-flu-feeling of ongoing side effects of the Flecainide and metoprolol.