Hi Shad:
All these posts are so true! We all start out being scared to leave the house. I certainly did and was scared to fly to see my children and grandchildren. I worried constantly and was in the hospital 2 times in Colorado and last May we moved to Florida. Had all the stress of finding new Doctors, selling house in Co. We are still staying with our daughter. In Nov. I had a really bad a- fib attack and ended up in ICU for 4 days. They gave me too much med and it caused problems. Changed my medicine. I now don' t go to e.r. as I was doing each time - panicking! I started going to a Therapist which I feel is helping me.
This is a awesome bunch of caring people on this site and now I have flown several times, go out to eat again, etc. They have all brought me through some rough times. Trust me I understand how you feel.Right now I am in my 7th day of a- fib and have seen my cardiologist and we have agreed for me to continue with my cardivilol
and lisinopril, Warfarin and Flec as PIP. My irregular beat isn't bothering me. I just don't like the fast h.r. I am to let him know how I am doing Mon. And he or my e.p. may schedule a cardioversion. I have my a-fib since Mach 2013 and had 3 attacks. The longest I have gone without an attack is 14 months and 4 months this last time. They told me just go on with my life.

These things are true:

1. Afib sucks
2. As bad as it sucks, afib won't kill you
3. The heart is a muscle. Not exercising it at all will cause it to atrophy.
4. You can take medication to calm your anxiety
5. No matter what you decide to do about your anxiety, realizing that #2 above is true will help you more than any pill ever could.

Sorry got cut off - on my Kindle. I have a question coevally these knowledgeable people on here. What is 1st degree atrioventricular block and Ventricular Complex? I saw them on my nonline Portal yesterday. Docs never mentioned them to me and assured me. - no limitations and I could do anything and go anywhere I wanted to go. I
whenever I want.
Shea, stay with this group and ask anything and share your ups and spend.
God bless and hugs.
Christine

Wow! So sorry for all mess ups on my messages. Hope you can understand most of it! SHAE : sorry I got your name wrong and I don't know how the word "spend" got there My Kindle hes a mind of it's own. It changes letters and. Words. ???! I SHould have read it all back first. Next timev"computer" Take care! And sorry again!!!!!

Shae,
I'm going to go out on a limb here....reading between the lines I believe that you may be dealing with clinical depression. If you can't "see a light at the end of the tunnel" and are feeling hopeless you may not be able to just pull yourself together at this point. Anxiety is certainly understandable with afib, but anxiety and depression go hand in hand. I think the best thing to do at this point is to share your feelings of anxiety and hopelessness with your pcp. I have had to take medications for anxiety and depression in the past and I'm sure there are others here that have also. We are all here for you....but I think you need to reach out for more help than we can offer here. Please, please let us know how you are doing.
P.S. If I am totally wrong I apologize. In that case listen to everyone else. Better days are ahead Shae.

Ditto to what marikay said! Get some help with the anxiety and depression and the rest will follow!

This discussion of anxiety and depression leads me to where I am now. When I was first diagnosed 10/14, I was terribly anxious and depressed. I still am, but force myself to go on. I take lorezepam at night to help with the worst. I saw a psychiatrist and she wanted me on an antidepressent/antianxiety pill, plus Xanax. I took neither of these pills because I don't want to take any more pills! Also, there are so many interactions, and I don't want to take 2 different antianxiety pills either. So I'm not to the point where I won't go out, but I don't exercise anymore. I really guess I need the therapy, and when I get home in March, I'll pursue it. But the psychiatrist I saw in December basically said: at my age I was lucky I hadn't had serious illness before (true), that many people face much worse issues much earlier in life sometimes, that at least it's not cancer (!), that her mother is confined to a wheelchair and still went to China, etc. So I guess she was trying to point out that it could be worse, and I do believe that.

Gosh Juniebe.....maybe you should find a different psychiatrist. That was not very compassionate or helpful.
All those things are true....we can always find someone worse off but when you are afraid of your own heart and it has betrayed you it isn't very helpful.
The afib is scary and anxiety is really a normal reaction but when it starts to interfere with normal activities like going for a walk it is probably time to get some professional help. I hope you can find a good therapist.

Hi Everyone. very interesting group, I was just diagnosed I can relate to what everyone says here and have a question I would love to see if anyone can relate to? or answer ?.. Every time I have the fast heartbeat I noticed I also had a stomach issue, it felt pinched? or sore and strange in my upper stomach especially if I lifted anything.
I was put on small doses of beta blockers and they increased it and added other drugs to slow my heart to keep it steady, well nothing really worked. I was in afib daily... sometimes to a point of going to the hospital sometimes I rode it out and stayed home.

So they discovered I had a hiatal hernia. I asked 2 specialists if this hernia could cause this? they told me that they can cause afib in some people, sometimes due to the size of the hernia but also due to the acid affecting the vagus nerve.

So I started to research this and discovered a lot of information on the subject , that it certainly can cause it. So since then I have been trying to get rid of the hernia if I can, weight loss, not eating before bed, and watching what I eat .
So when I don't have a stomach problem my heart problem goes away.. when I have terrible acid stomach and heartburn or a knot in my upper stomach the heart palps are back.. a question I have is my doctor says I am a candidate for ablation .. so how would it work where I if the hernia is causing the afib possibly .. so if that is the case would ablation work? would the hernia just continue to cause afib if the hernia remains after ablation? Thanks everyone, and good luck to all ... :)

Did you read this?

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/759995_6

I agree with Petey's initial comment. Try not to get yourself down. You can live an active life with this condition. All the best. ;)

Shae, Sorry that you're having such a hard time dealing with afib. I can assure you that exercise should not be a problem. I've had a few times where I've felt otherwise unexplained breathlessness and/or weakness while hiking or running, but I have just kept going, even if I had to stop for a bit. I've also awakened in the middle of the night multiple times in the same night because I could hear and feel my heart pounding. I tried to ignore it and went back to sleep. My cardiologist has encouraged me to keep running.

I traveled to Peru last year and hiked the Inca trail to Machu Picchu. Elevation got up close to 14000 feet.

My exercise is keeping me in fairly good shape despite paroxysmal afib.

Education has been my best defense against anxiety. The people in this group have done a lot to point me towards good info.

I wish you the best in dealing with AF.

Todd

Todd: Did you see any Ancient Aliens up there?

http://anti-societytv.blogspot.com/2012/12/ufotv-presents-ancient-aliens-in-peru.html

petey

You're on the same path as my except I'm further down the road by a year. A few comments:

- Don't give up on the CPAP machine if you struggle at first. It took me a month or two to not wake every few hours and to not fight breathing out while the machine is blowing air in. I hope you adjust more easily to it but if not just keep plugging away. My nightly AHI numbers slowly went down to less than 5, which is considered not having sleep apnea. But it took time. Now I really don't even notice or struggle with it (except when I have to itch my nose...that is annoying!). It hasn't cured my Afib, but if you read about all the damage that sleep apnea does to the body I'm glad I found out now.

- When I asked my cardiologist if I could exercise, even if in Afib, he said he never restricts exercise in his patients other than don't do it to the point of overexertion. I shoveled 4 inches of snow off my driveway yesterday while in Afib. My plan is start walking once it gets nice out...which in Ohio may never happen :( Bottom line, I think walking will make you feel better and it's not going to hurt anything assuming you're doctor has determined nothing else is wrong with your heart.

- Unless your symptoms are really bad, don't let Afib keep you from your normal tasks. I'd say I've gone in and out of Afib at least 70 times the past year, but I never missed work or anything else that i wanted to do. At some point I figured out it wasn't going to kill me and that even if it never went away, there were certainly worse things that could happen to me.

- In the worst moments of my life I found it comforting to just focus on getting through one day. Don't worry about how far the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be. Just do your best today and start over again tomorrow and pretty soon the light will be there.

Well said Ohiofib