Valeeen:
Sorry you have joined our club. No one wants AFIB, but we all have it so we are all learning to live with it. Most important is that it won't kill you. It may make you anxious, uncomfortable, crazy at times. However, it can be managed. The best way to manage it is one of our favorite topics. So, please feel free to ask all the questions you want. There is a wealth of knowledge and experiences among us Afibers.

Please describe your episodes. Do you feel them? How long do they last? How frequently? Are they debilitating? Have you felt a need to get converted (electrically or chemically at the hospital)?

Are you taking an anti coagulant (aspirin, warfarin, Eliquis, Xarelto, Pradaxa) ?

Do you suspect any particular triggers?

And yes, 50 mg OD metoprolol (a beta blocker for rate control) is often the first thing prescribed. ?

If you are in North Jersey (where I am), there are several good Arrhythmia practices here.

Oh, I forgot. What type of event monitor do you have? Is it the size of a pack of cigarettes with two pads on your chest? Or is it a ZIO Patch. or something else?

:-) yes I'm sorry too....started with 25 mg & then "upgraded"...to 50...yes i feel them...heart flip-flops...not debilitating....but very tiring... dizzy sometimes....have to take another pill which makes me even more tired...no particular triggers...no anti coagulants...other than 81 mg aspirin....my monitor is Heartbreak ECAT2...yes north jersey...i've finally realized that this is indeed not going away.....time to deal with it & educate myself!! Thanks for your response....

That is the craziest thing about afib for me.....the notion that it just might go away. I have had it for 4.5 yrs. My episodes have been daily or as far apart as 4 mos. I've just passed 10 weeks NSR (normal sinus rhythm) and that little hope still lingers....alas, I really know better. Once that deviant cell fires instead of the sinus node....once it happens, afib is a potential for the rest of the story.

Managing afib can be trial and error. Hoping the monitor will lead you to successful management!

Welcome aboard!!!

Valeen: I'm in afib all the time and for the last almost 5 years. Funny, it started when I found out we had to move from NJ to Maryland because of my wife's job moving from Fort Monmouth to Aberdeen Proving Ground. I hope you are seeing an electrophysiologist who can properly assess the appropriateness of aspirin versus an anticoagulant. You can look up CHA2DS2Vasc scoring that determines the need for an anticoagulant based on risk scores. Wikipedia has a good simple summary. Stay active and you will feel less tired. You have to fight the "tiredness" effects of the rate control drug (and afib itself). The 3 most important things in order are: stroke prevention, rate control, and then symptom reduction or elimination. You will be fine once you accept the diagnosis and you will live a long time. petey

Valeen, welcome to the club where membership is booming! Of course we were hoping for declining membership.
I told my doc when this hit me at 56, Im too young for this shite!
I was put on Metop 25mg twice day and could not handle during the daytime so doc advised me to take only at night. 90% of my episodes happened in my sleep so it made sense to me and worked for a time. James

Well thank you all for all of your input....silly auto correct....yes heartrak.......not heartbreak...LOL.... no electrophysiologist yet...we were kind of waiting to see if the meds would work....i believe that maybe the next step....although i was thinking of a second opinion first.....will see what happens once the monitor is off & go from there... again thanks for responding....

Welcome, Vallen !

I've worn two monitors in the 15mos I've been dealing with fib/flutter.

The first was the old-school pager style (clips on your belt, leads stuck to chest). The second was the Zio patch.

Pretty much everybody here knows more about this than I do, but ... I wanted to welcome you to this frustrating little club ;-)

Sorry. I spelled your name wrong.

When I'm in fib/flutter, I have noticeable difficulty thinking/remembering :-)

heartract is a good monitor well give doc good sense whats going on .. wore them twice for 30 days no problems metoprolol i take twice a day keep heart rate good sounds like your doing all the right things ...

Just went through something similar. I had to wear the monitor, and then wound up having a cardiac ablation in an effort to alleviate the symptoms a few weeks ago. So far, since the procedure, the frequency of episodes has dwindled substantially, down to 4 or 5 episodes a week.