I'm really lacking at this blogging thing these days but I'm going to make an effort to improve.
Lots has happened since July. Besides Covid, shut downs, insanity, TP shortages, etc. Back in June I started having some off days on the bike. Heart rate seemed normal. However, I was unable to get my heart rate up over 132 a couple times when out. I chalked it up to the 25mg of metoprolol I take twice a day. But as the month progressed so did ectopic beats and a run or two of afb. Nothing while exercising though. It was always while just sitting around or when I first wake up. This went on throughout the entire month of June.
I spoke to Dr. Natale in early July and he put me back on flecanide for 10 days then wanted me to stop it after that again. Which I did. Once I stopped things seemed normal again and I got back to the bike. I also started paying attention to see if I could decipher what was going on or if I could pinpoint a trigger which if you have afib is like looking for a unicorn. Triggers are mostly non existent. And if you think you do have one figured out it will surely turn out to be that its not in most cases. There are a few out there though that will trigger an event.
I am about 99% convinced that other than the events I have when waking the others are most definitely triggered by eating. Not any particular food but how much and or how fast I eat. Since I have been watching these 2 things my episodes have disappeared for the most part. I'm still having ectopic beats and have had one really short run of arrhythmia on the bike the past week. I have an appointment early November with Dr Natale to hopefully finish off whatever else is lingering.
Riding & Hiking
Still riding, hiking and traveling on a pretty regular basis. As regular as working 7/7 schedule, with OT mixed in allows. As I mentioned above. I did experience a brief episode last Saturday towards the end of the ride. We had done allot of climbing including one ridge climb. This is the first time I allowed my Heart rate to go above 150 bpm. At about 3/4 to the top of the ridge I saw 173 and backed way off to not let it go any higher.
Towards the end of the ride I got split from the group as I hesitated at an intersection and had to wait on some traffic to pass. So I sprinted to catch up but still felt good at this point. A few miles down the road though my HR jumped to 188 bpm for about 10 seconds or so the right back to 149 bpm. Not sure if it was as short run of afib or a run of ectopic beats. My wahoo HRM just does HR nothing else. I felt fine the entire time and the remaining 5 miles were uneventful.
FORBES STATE FORREST
