Spending Christmas with atrial-fibrillation?

Here comes Christmas again.

I am 66 years old, have had recurrent paroxysmal atrial fibrillation for about 10 years, getting worse with each year.

It is unresponsive to cardiovesion, IV metoprolol and IV procainamide .... so they hospital has told me to just NOT show up unless I am having heart attack symptoms.

I have found that taking 150mg of Magnesium a day has reduced the frequency and the intensity of my a-fib.

From once every 5-10 days for 24 hours, flat on my back .. to once ever 14-21 days, 1 hour at the most and NOT flat on my back (I can smile and fake it for social situations).

I got this tip from a friend who was worked up for arrhythmias at the Mayo Clinic, and was told the solution was to take Magnesium ... just regular drug store off-the-shelf Magnesium. SHE was having a-fib once a week and it would last for 3 days. NOW she almost never has it, and if she does go into A-fib, she takes an extra Mg pill and restores normal rhythm within an hour.

Hope this helps you.

Merry Christmas.

I am 62 and have had Afib for about 25 years. For the first few episodes I had, it was ALWAYS around Thanksgiving or Christmas, but it would stop before I could get to the hospital. I wore a Holter monitor a number of times and nothing would happen, then the day it was removed, I had an episode. Finally I went to the ER and was still in Afib. I take medication and fortunately don't have prolonged episodes very often, usually just short episodes from time to time. I agree that while it is considered a common problem and chronic rather than life threatening, that is of no consolation when you have having an attack.

@Tweety. It is your post that makes no sense. If you read Kenny s post you d see he is simply trying to be supportive of others who are suffering with atrial fibrillation during the holidays. He did ask a question, "Spending Christmas with atrial fibrillation?" I certainly hope your bedside manner is better than the lack of empathy you showed to Kenny.

Evidently, you don't have a question and that is the format for this place.

"if you got a cardiac condition and a pacemaker, and the a-fibs struck you this time of year but couldn't get it treated on time for any given reason, then this thread is a small show of support." -- Kenny, I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say there. It doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't it make more sense to have an implanted defibrillator rather than a pacemaker? And are you taking an anticoagulant and antiarrhythmic? A beta-blocker? Calcium channel blocker? Has your cardiologist talked about ablation?

I'm afraid you've used this forum to make statements instead of posting questions and I'm not sure what to tell you. Perhaps you're having an episode of "holiday heart" but perhaps you need to seek psychological counseling as soon as you can arrange it.