Oh the irony of it, the doc coming to my home is a cardiologist and geriatric doc...she is Young and goes by the western medicine books...
Your experience with the "bird feeling" is what I was referring to when I said everybody I know who was diagnosed felt SOMETHING but often they didn't know what the feeling was. Good advice. @Yvonne Smith
Thanks Louise, and this is w hy I am going to start taking Nattokinaise, for good measure I guess.....a blood thinner drug is not my choice. I have NEVER had the bird feeling (flutter) and I could be missing beats here and there, this is common as I've heard over years,
There are quite a few foods that will help to thin your blood, and adding more of those to your diet should help. Most of the blood thinners they have now actually just make your blood slick, so that clots do not form. Coumadin is maybe the only one that actually thins blood, and I would definitely avoid that one , if you decide to try blood thinners. According to my cardiologist, Eliquis (which is what I take) does the least damage to other organs, like the liver and kidneys. What they explained to me was that when the heart is in afib and not all of the blood is pumped through, then clots can form, and the more you are in afib, the more chance of this happening, which can then lead to a stroke or pulmonary embolism if it happens in your lungs. Those are NOT fun, and maybe the worst pain I have ever had ! Even though the pacemaker keeps my heart in proper rhythm, my one chamber will always be in afib, so I am still taking the Eliquis, just not to take any chances.
I have been ON TOP of potassium for years, looked at my labs and when I see potassium coming in at lower end of range, I would get with more foods and supplements.. Pot is never in the high end of lab range..........many are potassium deficient or just real low. My 2022 lab on potassium came in at 4.1 on 3.5 to 5.5 range, so here again in the Low End. One of the risk factors for atrial fibrillation — a common irregular heart rhythm — is not getting enough, or getting too much, potassium. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends you aim for at least 4,700 milligrams of potassium each day in your diet.
Somehow the US Department of Agriculture is not first on my list of medical authority, though this recommendation may be accurate.
Yep you and I differ on what is on our lists of health importance.....and not a subject very deeply taught in medical schools, nope, good ole drugs = big pharma profits..... I prefer to support the farmers and our foods vs pharma and their drugs..... Although i do support pharma with my few meds and otc stuff...
When I had my TIA (small stroke) and was getting ready to leave the hospital, the doctor ordered a heart monitor for me and told me that I would wear it for a month. The nurse who put it on me said "2 weeks." I could tell by her demeanor that there was some power struggle between the 2 of them, and the patient gets stuck in the middle. So when I heard the doctor in the room next to me, I accosted him in the hall as he exited and asked which it was. He angrily snapped at me "I said a month!!!" So I got discharged and went home with the thing attached to me. Two weeks later the smartphone transmitter they provide displayed a message: "Your two week subscription is up. Please return the devices." So I called the doctor's office to get the subscription extended, and he said "Two weeks is fine." I guess the nurse beat him into submission. I was then referred to a cardiologist for follow-up, and he put a less comfortable model on me because he wanted to get a full month's data. I wore that one for 30 days (a total of 6 weeks wearing a monitor) and never had an "event" captured by either of them. I've had friends who have gone through this stuff, and their heart monitors found A-FIB within the 1st week. Since it found what it was looking for, there was no need to wear the monitor any longer. I've not encountered anyone who took longer than that for evidence to be captured, but those friends had symptoms when they sought help in the first place. The moral of the story is that there seems to be no consistency on how long is "long enough," so 30 days seems to be "an abundance of caution" for people who are a-symptomatic. I guess that's reasonable, since we're talking about your heart.
I completely agree with you, @Joy Martin about preferring to support farmers rather than pharma. This is why I am always reading more books from health-oriented doctors and trying to learn better ways to keep myself healthy. In the final analysis, our heath is in our hands to make what we believe are the best decisions, so I play guinea pig and try out different things that I read about to see which ones make a difference. That being said, playing around with afib is a dangerous thing, because once you have a stroke, it is too late to change your mind about taking medication to prevent it. So, I don’t take chances on the risky things like a stroke or embolism, I just try to minimize the damage from the medications that I need to prevent something serious from happening.
I do that too. I was surprised how low it drops during sleep, low 40s. I asked my doc about it and he said no concern as long as there was no pain or shortness of breath; surprised me though.
Yvonne: I just don't trust the docs, they all have different things to say., I gather as much as I can for myself and trust me, the smart doc that I want to be. And I'm not playing around with afib just so much I don't put in concrete.... I trust I'll Never have a stroke.
Just thinking about my folks, their hearts just would not quit...dad was so ready to go and that heart kept going and finally at 95, he left... mom didn't want to go but did at 91 and they both took "little: heart meds as long as I can remember. And at everything and dad drank booze up to the end.
uh-huh. Isn’t the Dept. of Ag the same folks who approve of dosing our veggies with pharmaceuticals to make them grow faster and bigger? The same folks who approved of genetically engineering our proteins as well as our veggies? Kinda like bumping into two guys on the street. The guy named Pharm has a gun in his hand and the other one named AG has his hands behind his back. At least one can readily tell that the one with the visible gun is dangerous whilst the other hides what he has. AG is a devious devil is he not?
The govt agencies are doing as they will. We have to do our best to buy the cleaniest foods we can weed thru and and it's pretty G.D, ugly out there.