Recently I’ve become aware of atrial fibrillation. It flutters away quite suddenly and lasts as long as it lasts. I had to do something as I started getting frightening sensations that I called the darkness which was a strange blacking out sensation. It started when I was driving and I had to stop and rest. It all came to a head when I saw my doctor who said he could see what it was doing and put me on medication immediately. I thought well maybe I’m having a heart attack !
I remembered this happening before and I thought it was a panic attack. It was very upsetting as I had been through several frightening incidents and was thinking ‘ here we go’ again.
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Has your GP referred you to a heart specialist for this too? Great they’ve acted so quickly to treat it as can be a cause for stroke. It’s something they normally look for when you’ve had a stroke.
Hope the meds settle things for you.
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Hi Rosamund I suffered with atrial fibrillation and the episodes got longer and longer . This was during covid lockdown and gp prescribed a beta blocker which did nothing to stop it . It’s a really unsettling feeling when it happens . I eventually got an appointment with a cardiologist but it was cancelled when he got covid . Rearranged appointment It was at 11 am one morning and I had a stroke at 9 am . I thought the irregular heart beat was down to stress and had no idea it cud lead to a stroke 
I was worried that I wud hav a heart attack and had no idea it cud cause a stroke 
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Hi Rosamund and Christine. I had a stroke 5 years ago. Before I left the hospital, they said to make an appmt. with my GP, a cardiologist and a neurologist right away, which I did. The cardiologist discovered I had afib, which had caused the stroke. I did not like the way beta blockers affected me. So, he switched me to a calcium channel blocker (dilitiazem/ or Cardia). I tolerate that fine. Very important to see a cardiologist after a stroke, to discover afib and to make sure it is treated properly. Jeanne
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Hi Jeanne & rosamund I take flecanide to control my heart Rythum and it’s suited me fine since stroke … also blood thinners apixiban
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I also have AFib…paroxymal and with rvr. I take apixaban, Atorvostatin, Amlodipine, Hydralazine and Metoprolol. I am trying to get rid of Gabapentin as I think it does no good for settling my eyes and only makes me more cloudy in the head. Since it isn’t a heart medication, I think it will be fine. Spoke with Neurologist about it, waiting to speak with NeuroOpthamologist about it next, as she prescribed it.
Do you know what triggers your AFib? Sometimes I don’t but most of the time, I have gotten overheated or overtired.
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Blimey do you rattle if they shake you!
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That is funny! I will have to use that one!
I am rattled for certain. This is America, dude, land of THERE IS A PILL TO FIX EVERYTHING! I have as many physicians as pills, so maybe they each have to prescribe one to look like they are doing something helpful? My last GP was a DO rather than MD. I like that better. They have a tendency to look for changes we can make in diet, exercise, changing something in our lifestyle first, then throw pills your way, if necessary. All he told me to take was Magnesium Glycinate, and continue with Calcium w/Vitamin D and a multivitamin prescribed to me in hospital.
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I hope you’re not too vigorously rattled .
Is the conclusion that only multivitamins are needed to cure all ills?
This may be a segue to a topic that’s too deep or sensitive for this forum but I do think that America is broken more seriously than Europe but they’re both are on the decline in the same way that the Egyptians declined, the Romans declined, the Incas were superseded. I worry that the decline of America because of its social injustices will be a powder keg. Whether that goes off before yellowstone national park or not either seems likely to end civilisation as we know it.
A planetary economic stroke rather than a brain stroke for an individual?
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Again you find me in agreement. I will say I believe the vitamins did help, but considering they were prescribed when I did not have sustenance for 30 days, then had feeding tube for another 30, it made sense. I still use a dietary supplement if I have not eaten well enough. Real food is expensive here. Processed food is the cheaper stuff. That is why the only real industry left here is insurance and health care.
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Real food is expensive here too 
the junk is cheap because everything that’s left after taking out the real stuff gets pulverised and then wrapped in plastic
Lea buys a large percentage of our food in the farmers markets so we eat healthily.
Insurance employs the principal that; a large number of people pay for what a small number of people use. The aggregator collecting and dispersing the fees is an underwriter. All systems anywhere in the world use that principle. In the UK individuals have no choice because that underwriter is the government. In other countries the individual contracts with a third party who is a profit maximising entity.
Both systems fall foul of one of the four cases that applied in spending money that were identified by Milton Friedman in Spending money
I’ve never ceases to concern me how many people think that an insurer is there to give them protection. It’s not. It’s there to return dividends to the shareholders who provide its capital/equity. The only way to get protection from an insurer is to own it. In part it would be the model in the UK if the last 75 years of government had built a mechanism of governing people fairly instead of a mechanism of making a profit for the few with the ownership of everything.
I’m sure there are many public spirited politicians, unfortunately they’re the ones on the ground in the community not the ones calling the shots in the centre.
US system started with even more dysfunctions and grows weaker with each Republic win
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I had a stroke last November. Literally couldn’t get out of my chair. My wife called for an ambulance and I was admitted overnight. I felt fine. I was diagnosed with AF. So far I’ve had one round of cardio conversion, which hasn’t worked Yesterday I had an angiogram which showed my arteries to the heart were all ok. Now awaiting a further consultation and more cardio conversion, I expect!
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The US rations healthcare through money, the U.K. rations by queues !
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I’ve had this for years. An unpleasant fluttering sensation. I could never swim properly and anything of a very energetic nature used to cause a strange tight sensation.
It was when I had episodes of feeling faint with the darkness closing in…sometimes when driving too!
I’m set off by stress of any sort.
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I feel like they’re ought to be a ditty like time is nature’s way of ensuring everything doesn’t happen at once and money is humanity’s way of ensuring people don’t get what they deserve and have a right to
Dont know whether that makes me sound communist! 
I’m certainly not persuaded by the idea of a centrally controlled economy but I’m also of the opinion that the systems that we have at the moment are not fit for the coming future or indeed that they were ever fit for the past but there maladjustments were less avoidable and less extreme
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