Yes, I have Afib. I am a 67 year old man and always throughout my life been able to do anything i wanted to do. i always pushed myself to the limit with no problems. My story started in December right before I turned 66. I woke up at 2AM with a heart rate of 250 BPM and could not breath. I checked it with a finger tester my wife had here for her mother. By the time i get to the ER my heart rate was back to normal so I went back home. A few day later it came back and that time I went into the ER. and found out I had Afid. Before that I had no clue what Afib was. The way it was broke to me was the nurse said, congratulation, you have Afib. That's some way to break it to a person that thinks he might be having a hard attack.
this is when all my problems started. for the next few months I was in and out the ER/Hospital. They put me on every type of heart medication and blood thinners they make and my body rejected them all. I fell into depression and had anxiety you would not believe. The doctor cared less. All they want to do is give you the required 5 or 10 minutes and they are out of there. there is no patient care anymore.
After months of living in bed from the meds I was on I decided to have an Ablation to get off the heart medication and hopefully the blood thinners. The blood thinners I was on my co-payment was 377.00 a month. With that being said I was going to die broke. I did change to warfarin and that brought it from 377.00 to 1.00 a month but my heard and stomach hurt all the time. I told the doctors and like always they said it was not coming from the medication. Like I said, they don't want to get in depth with it because it would run over the 5 minutes they give you. I had one heart doctor tell me it was all in my head.
As of now I'm about 8 months post Ablation and still on blood thinners plus heart meds as needed. I'm still full of depression and anxiety and no one seems to care. I did take it on my own to talk with a doctor about depression but after trying me on 3 different medication I didn't go back. The last meds he had me on put me back into Afib.
There is a new device that was approved by the FDA in 2015 called the watchman device. I you have it in planted in you heart you suppose to be able to come off the blood thinners. i talked with another heart doctor and he is ready to do the operation but I'm a little concerned by it being so new. there is no long term studies on the side effects.
To sum it up I'm still going in and out of Afib and full of depression and anxiety and there is no doctor willing to sit down with me and talk about it. after five minutes they are ready to push me out of the door. I think if I could get the anxiety and depression off me I would feel like a new man again.
If there is anyone out there that has been through depression that can help me out, I'm all ears..... I'm looking for a natural way to cure it. I'm not good on medication.
Thanks
------------------------------
louis tew
retired
N/A
wilson NC
------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 04-01-2017 21:14
From: Jay Rogers
Subject: AFIB patients
Anybody out there with AFIB? I'd be interested in reading your experiences. Thanks.