Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Hit And Miss


I have a great appreciation for these old machines. Its rare to actually see one of these in action but every once in a while, while out on a ride, I will here one being used for plowing or bailing.

Anyway this is just how my heart was on Sunday. Hit and miss. Mostly miss.

The weekend started out the same as its been since my ablation, nice calm NSR. I did some shopping with the family in the afternoon followed by church . Then home for a quiet evening. Sunday morning I awoke to find myself out of rhythm. This was the day I planned to start weaning myself off of the Ticosyn because the nerve pain has been creeping back. So I decided to wait until I had the opportunity to speak with my Afib nurse at TCA. Meanwhile I took some recordings throughout the day with the HEARTRAK (Kardia on its way).

The other odd thing that happened was Monday morning very early. I had woken up around 3am still out of rhythm. I got out of bed to get a drink and came back to bed, At some point shortly after I converted back to what felt like sinus rhythm. However, my heart rate was very low, 37 bpm. It stayed this way for a while then jumped back to around 70bpm. Then after a while back to 37. Now I was using a pulse oximeter to record these rates so the accuracy and interpretation of what was actually going on is up for debate. Though the rate was steady with no fluctuation at both rates. I did run back out to the kitchen to grab the recorder to try and capture the event but what I was feeling and what was recorded were two different things. This continued for the entire morning; until my heart decided to just go completely haywire for the remainder of the afternoon into the evening. I converted back to NSR early evening and have remained there ever since.

This is the first time I have ever experienced such a low hear rate. My normal resting heart rate now is 62 bpm. And has been as low as 52 bpm when I was more active. One thing I think that may have contributed to this was that I had taken 75mg of Metoprolol the previous evening to try to keep my heart rate down as the 50mg I had taken in the morning was not enough. This is only speculation though. I had been taking 75 mg of Metoprolol with the Ticosyn prior to my ablation for the same reasons when the Ticosyn was not sustaining NSR without any issues.