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I'm really not enjoying these afib episodes

Dec 28, 2024

I had taken the week off from working out to give my joints a much-needed rest. I went back to the gym yesterday and had a pretty good workout. I'm a bit sore today, but that comes with the territory.

What I wish had not come with it was a 2:15am wakeup to my 7th atrial fibrillation episode of 2024. I did what I usually do, which is to take 2 does of 150mg of propafenone, which is a heart rythm control medication.

Up until this year, I would usually just take a single dose and I would convert back to normal sinus rythm within an hour. This year, it's been taking longer and longer to convert. This time, it took about 4 hours. And that was after I took another 2 doses, having not converted after 3 hours following the first 2 doses.

As usual, I took a few EKG readings using a Kardia device. It often confirms what I'm feeling, which is that my heart is in atrial fibrillation.

I did a little research and it seems that the progression of atrial fibrillation as one ages is that the episodes get longer. I've had about the name number of episodes per year for the last several years, but it seems that this year, I've taken some sort of turn.

I've got an appointment with my cardiologist at the end of January and will ask him what a reasonable threshhold would be before I should consider having an ablation procedure which would hopefully eliminate the episodes altogether.