Sorry to here about your condition Graham418. Afib is near and dear to my heart, for several reasons. I designed cathlab equipment for about a decade and worked with several doctors in the Boston area that did cath procedures, including ablations. Turns out they had to use my products on myself due to contracting Afib. I was a lone fibrullator, no underlying cause. I was very symptomatic and had very reduced stamina and strength when in Afib. Some people don't really feel it, but boy did I. After trying almost every medication available (except amioderone, very damaging stuff) I was finally cured after 10 or so ablations (yes I did have 10 of them). Dr William Stevenson is the man how knows how to cure it, he is at the Brighams and William Hospital in Boston. I had ablations with 4 other EP cardiologists who in reality didn't know how to cure it with ablation. They all claimed to be able to cure me, but they failed. Stevenson succeeded, he is the real deal.
Anyway, if having an episode (mine would come and go, and sometimes they wouldn't go) I would be able to ski greens and blues, but not anything more challenging. I am an expert skier. Cardioversions worked well on me, had about 30 of them. Its a tough thing to try and live a normal athletic life with, if symptomatic. One key for me was taking a low dose of a beta blocker every day. That made an afib episode less severe. I also would carry some with me at all times and if having an episode, I would take one or two and it would help a lot to slow my heart rate down and get me back into synus rythem.
I highly advise you to contact Stevenson at the B&W Hospital and get evaluated for an ablation cure. I have been cured for over 10 years and I got my athletic life back. He was a blessing. There is a wide variation in how doctors view and treat Afib. Most consider it very minor and basically treat the blood clot risk. I almost never took blood thinners, my goal was to stay in sinus rythem the vast majority of the time. I did spend 2 years in constant afib and had to go on the thinners. I was told I would never be able to stay in sinus rythem again. Most of what I was told was wrong. I have a very jaded view of doctors because of all the BS that was told to me. Again Stevenson cured me and he is the real deal. How you want to handle your Afib is up to you, but don't accept the doctors advice that says you can't get rid of it and you have to live with it. If you want to OK, but most doctors would love to have you as an afib patient, they will be making lots of money off you. There will be plenty of billable procedures in your future if you are symptomatic. Based on what you described on your ski trip, you fall into the symptomatic category.
Sorry if this is a bit much, but I am giving it to you straight. Just a FYI, when I found out I had it, almost 20 years ago, I spent two weeks in the medical library at Hewlett Packard reading every medical article about Afib I could find. I wanted to make sure I knew as much as the doctors on the subject. By the time I was done with it all, I did. I am telling you this so you don't think I am some overly opinionated Aho.. acting like a know it all. I made sure I knew what all my options and odds were. I struggled with it for 10 years (got it in my early 30's) and cried like a baby when Stevenson finally cured me. A lot of difficult emotions inside me from dealing with it.
Anyway, if having an episode (mine would come and go, and sometimes they wouldn't go) I would be able to ski greens and blues, but not anything more challenging. I am an expert skier. Cardioversions worked well on me, had about 30 of them. Its a tough thing to try and live a normal athletic life with, if symptomatic. One key for me was taking a low dose of a beta blocker every day. That made an afib episode less severe. I also would carry some with me at all times and if having an episode, I would take one or two and it would help a lot to slow my heart rate down and get me back into synus rythem.
I highly advise you to contact Stevenson at the B&W Hospital and get evaluated for an ablation cure. I have been cured for over 10 years and I got my athletic life back. He was a blessing. There is a wide variation in how doctors view and treat Afib. Most consider it very minor and basically treat the blood clot risk. I almost never took blood thinners, my goal was to stay in sinus rythem the vast majority of the time. I did spend 2 years in constant afib and had to go on the thinners. I was told I would never be able to stay in sinus rythem again. Most of what I was told was wrong. I have a very jaded view of doctors because of all the BS that was told to me. Again Stevenson cured me and he is the real deal. How you want to handle your Afib is up to you, but don't accept the doctors advice that says you can't get rid of it and you have to live with it. If you want to OK, but most doctors would love to have you as an afib patient, they will be making lots of money off you. There will be plenty of billable procedures in your future if you are symptomatic. Based on what you described on your ski trip, you fall into the symptomatic category.
Sorry if this is a bit much, but I am giving it to you straight. Just a FYI, when I found out I had it, almost 20 years ago, I spent two weeks in the medical library at Hewlett Packard reading every medical article about Afib I could find. I wanted to make sure I knew as much as the doctors on the subject. By the time I was done with it all, I did. I am telling you this so you don't think I am some overly opinionated Aho.. acting like a know it all. I made sure I knew what all my options and odds were. I struggled with it for 10 years (got it in my early 30's) and cried like a baby when Stevenson finally cured me. A lot of difficult emotions inside me from dealing with it.
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). I had few "weird" issues couple of years ago, when my HR went up to 220 (my max hr is 178) and you could feel heart is not really working normally, no idea how to describe, but literally felt like some sort of fibrillation and not normal "pumping". Everytime it happened I was pushing a bit harder (xc skiing, running or mtb), was maybe a bit on dehydrated side, and what's most important, I have been drinking bunch of espressos before training session. I guess I don't need to mention this scared the shi*t out of me, and I activated all my friends to get some favours back, and in less then 2 months I had pretty much every possible medical check done... nothing... all good. Then I tried few things myself, and figured it out, if I cut on coffee 3-4h before training, I never had this issue. Made another test, drink 2 or 3 coffees and went for run... bang 20min into the run, same thing. So I stopped drinking coffee 3-4h before session. I still drink the same amount of coffee during day (in worse days that's also something like 10 espressos/day), but I avoid drinking it before training session and never had these issues again. Probably nothing similar to your friend, but that "drank a few cups of coffee and took off like a bat out of hell" still sounds like my thing.
