A-Fib response to Sleep Therapy

[brothermike]

I've got Atrial Fibrillation/Flutter....even had a procedure known as catheter ablation which was not successful...then after repeated suggestions from my Ex-wife and my daughter, I had a sleep study and now have been using my PR-Pro One for almost three months?...anyway...I am hoping to have this sleep therapy result in alleviation of the atrial fib...I am still having symptoms and don't expect that this will happen overnight but I think the heart symptoms are improving..anybody else got experience with this?

[jimnsc]

I do have brief experience with this. I have been electrically cardioverted back to normal sinus rhythm three times from A. Fib. My cardiologist is the one who talked me into getting the sleep test done for OSA and I had it, of course. Her hopes were that treatment for OSA might well prevent further incidents of A. Fib. When I began treatment in early March I was in normal sinus rhythm. I take my blood pressure regularly as I also have high BP. Several times in the last two weeks my monitor has occasionally indicated irregular heart beats but I am not real concerned as it goes back into normal rhythm. The sailing has not all been smooth with my treatment, mainly due to masks that didn't work well for me and I wonder if those times might not aggravate normal rhythm rather than maintain it. Who knows for certain as so many things can contribute including medications.

I guess I'll see in the long run. Good luck to you.

[Slinky]

I have COPD which can be an underlying cause of Atrial fibrillation. However, I've had COPD at least since 1996. I was started on CPAP in late 2006 and switched to bi-level in early 2008.

2009 I experienced a few very rare heart "flutters", maybe 3-4 times. March 2010 I experienced one short episode of strong, rapid, erratic heart beat, maybe 2-3 minutes at most. I then experienced the same once a month thru July. The episode in July lasted 3-4 hours and caused some chest pain as well as severe SOB so I went to ER. I was started on coumadin and diltiazem, referred to a cardiologist and put on a 30 day event monitor. I had some more episodes but none so long nor so severe as the one causing the ER trip. Rythmol was added to my med regimen and diltiazem was tapered off and Toprol added in its place due to the diltiazem causing some edema. I have not had an episode that I am aware of since the 3rd day of Rythmol. knock, Knock, KNOCK. That would be about 6 months ago now.

Due to the COPD we've not achieved tremendous success w/PAP therapy but despite that I am still sleeping one heck of a whole lot better than I did before PAP! Because of the COPD I have both a "spot checking" oximeter and a "recording oximeter" that I've purchased thru the years. I've found the oximeter more convenient for indicating heart rate than my BP monitor.

[M.D.Hosehead]

XPAP did not help afib in my case. I needed a catheter ablation that was partially successful. XPAP could be reducing the frequency of episodes now; I'm certainly not going to stop XPAP to find out.

OTOH, XPAP greatly decreased my need for BP meds; in fact, I may even be able to stop them entirely.

[brothermike]

Thanks for the responses and sorry I wasn't able to get with it on real time...I had to work today......or should I say that I was privileged to have a job to go to and perform today?

My A-Fib is not due to any obvious health indicators...that's one reason I'm hoping that one benefit to recuperative sleep (including a stable oxygen level) will be alleviation of the heart rhythm problem.

I've never experienced pain with the heart difficulty. In fact, I wasn't aware that the loss of power I'd experience was even heart related.

I'm thinking that years of apnea and hypopnea have brought on the heart's response to reduced oxygen levels as an attempt to compensate...?

That's my theory and I'm still holding on to the dream that I'll be significantly improved with BiFlex Air Pressure therapy.

I must say that I've been extremely fortunate to have taken to 'the hose' w/o any difficulties that might have otherwise lead to non compliance and I do feel, after 3 mos, more energy and less stress.

I think the key to this for me is the oxygenated sleep cycle. yeah...that's the ticket!