Sick with Covid we had a nice snowstorm this past Sunday night that dropped a foot and a half overnight. We closed work for Monday so our people wouldn't have to try to drive, it was a mess. I spent about an hour and a half snowblowing at home and was fine as usual. Went to work in the afternoon to shovel and snowblow the entrance doors to save my guys the trouble on Tuesday morning.

The snowblower had trouble with the snow so I worked harder than the machine. Coming home I was beat and started to feel dizzy and get cross eyed. I'm in great health, very good shape for any age and no heart problems, no health problems at all actually. I didn't know what the hell was going on but I knew I didn't feel right. I put my Apple watch on and my heart rate was 63, ok cool, but 3 seconds later it was 176 and that kept going on. Apparently the watch was wrong so I put on my Garmin, I know my heart rate, I exercise regularly and know what my heart does. The Garmin acted the same way. Good grief, I couldn't be having a heart attack but my wife was getting me worried. Wait...don't worry, that'll just make it worse, this is stupid. I didn't want to go to the hospital and not be dying but I didn't want to die because I was too dumb to go to the hospital. The wife called a friend of hers that's an RN and she told her I was in afib. I told her I wasn't in afib that my heart was just acting stupid, she said that's afib honey.

Apparently I was dehydrated from sweating my balls off moving the snow and because I only had coffee all day and "apparently" dehydration can put you into afib. A few bottles of water later and some sitting trying not to worry got me right again. I don't usually drink water in the winter because it's cold and I just want hot coffee. I didn't really like afib though so I'll start replacing a few cups a day with a few bottles of water.

I had a Biden week. Covid, afib, snow storm, plow wiped out the mailbox.

Glad you’re ok. Tons of people have this or worse happen doing snow removal every year. With it being so cold you don’t realize how hard you are working and it also masks dehydration.

AFIB/Atrial Flutter are know side effects of Long Haul Covid. Get ye to a cardiologist, and get yerself ECGd, heart monitored, and echo'd.

Covid gave me flutter, which meant that my heart was running 160 bpm 24/7, and my BP spiked to 190/140.

If you have heart symptoms following Covid, it can be serious shit, and you should get checked out.

Your risk of a stroke is SIX times greater if you have afib. Blood clots are a real concern. See a cardiologist asap.

I landed in the hospital in 2014 with my first bout of Afib that turned out to be dehydration too. Was working around our condo and my heart started beating weirdly and wouldn’t stop, I kept going about my business but started getting worried. Called my cardiologist and got the on-call doc and told him that my heart was going “Boom Boom, Boom-Boom-Boom, Boom, Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom, Boom Boom…” I said it’s like I’m an engine misfiring doc!

He said, drive yourself to the ER NOW

I found out the trick that day to NOT waiting forever in an ER is to mention “heart” when you walk in. The nurses and docs were on me like white on rice!

Dehydration and low potassium can definitely bring it on, OP make sure you’re getting lots of that: bananas, beets and V8 juice are all great sources.

Luckily my CPAP therapy has seemed to have virtually eliminated my AFib, I might get a flutter here or there but not like before where I’d get hit randomly from 10 minutes to 1 hour at a time.

It all sounds really cool for a guy that's always been healthy as a horse. I do have an EKG scheduled as part of my annual physical. Thanks for the advice.

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
AFIB/Atrial Flutter are know side effects of Long Haul Covid. Get ye to a cardiologist, and get yerself ECGd, heart monitored, and echo'd.

Covid gave me flutter, which meant that my heart was running 160 bpm 24/7, and my BP spiked to 190/140.

If you have heart symptoms following Covid, it can be serious shit, and you should get checked out.

Dont know for sure, but early this year my pulse and BP went very high, went to doc and ekg was fine but after a swab "you have covid", wound up in hospital for monitoring of heart, i had zero flu symptoms. After 12 hours and a bunch of ecgs and blood tests, they sent me home.

Will be following up with cardiologist next week. Thanks for your info that this is a possible side effect of covid.

Yes, see a cardiologist AND make sure he’s one that specializes in the electrical side of the field. Atrial fibrillation or flutter IS NOT something to take lightly. I have the t-shirt.

I've had a-fib off and on since 2013. It was a once a year random occurrence until last November. I've been in a-fib since then; I am on Warfarin and Sotalol, and I feel fine. I have an appointment next week with an EP Cardiologist to discuss options.

I think I'd rather learn about afib from some guy showing powerpoint slides in the front of a classroom and me falling asleep in the back.

I hope you get it all sorted out.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Your risk of a stroke is SIX times greater if you have afib. Blood clots are a real concern. See a cardiologist asap.

^^^THIS^^^ On a routine visit to my Cardiologist for my HBP he discovered I was in AFIB. This was at onset of Covid so I had cancelled some visits to him. I was asymptomatic but he was all over it once he found it. I didn't even leave his office till they gave my blood thinner meds. He suggested I get, which I did, the Kardia heart monitor device.

It was a little over a hundred bucks. The Kardia website or also Amazon. Get the 6-lead one which of course tells more. Set it on your knee, hold your thumbs on it and it records and stores your reading. Your doctor can then review the readings as a way to evaluate your situation.

After some meds for almost a year with no change and still in AFIB, a trip to the hospital for a cardio version and no more AFIB. So far. The Kardia is a way to really monitor your situation and stay on top of it. My Doc really promotes the blood thinners because of the stroke risk, even at this point in my "recovery"

Stay safe and healthy.

The new Apple Watch has an EKG app, it can measure your heartbeat and indicate if you are ok or afib. Since you wear it all the time it's always monitoring... The health app does a lot of neat measuring and monitoring, which you allow on a case by case basis.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208931

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
The new Apple Watch has an EKG app, it can measure your heartbeat and indicate if you are ok or afib. Since you wear it all the time it's always monitoring... The health app does a lot of neat measuring and monitoring, which you allow on a case by case basis.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208931

Also does O2 monitoring.I always thought it was a passing fad until I got one. Detects a fib, O2, and detects falls.

I once put on an apple watch just after a walk and it said my pulse rate was around 100.

I checked my pulse with my second hand on my watch and two fingers on my wrist and found it was actually 70.

i'm on eliquis/metoprolol after a single afib incident/passed out for 12min, 15 months ago.

I have had afib/aflutter for a while, but the last 2 years has been worse. I would regularly peg out at 250 beats per minute. Put me on heart monitor for 2 weeks that you wear and highest was a little over 300 beats a minute. Regular doc Sent me to a cardiologist and he put me on blood thinner and a heart regulating med. 2 weeks ago, after my hip replacement 4 weeks earlier, I had heart ablation done. I was in the cath lab for 4 hours. I am still having a few issues but the doctor that did the procedure said about 6-8 weeks I should be getting better. He also said I should have kicked the bucket when my heart rate was as high as it was.
Good luck, nothing to jack with. Blood clots are the biggest concern.

Dr. Sinatra treats his patients with magnesium, 400 mg once or twice a day(The Sinatra Solution, page 180).

quote:

Originally posted by 41:
Dr. Sinatra treats his patients with magnesium, 400 mg once or twice a day(The Sinatra Solution, page 180).

Potassium and Magnesium are key for a healthy heart, something to do with the regulation of the heart’s electrical system.

quote:

Originally posted by airbubba:
i'm on eliquis/metoprolol after a single afib incident/passed out for 12min, 15 months ago.

I've never passed out from a-fib but it is a condition I have. My Cardiologist has me on eliquis and metoprolol, too. So far it seems to be keeping the a-fib in check. (I also take potassium, magnesium, and zinc supplements, eat bananas, and drink V-8.) I check my pulse rate and O2 level every day.

I consur with the others that you need to visit a Cardiologist for an expert opinion.

flashguy

Sorry to hear it. Definitely see a cardiologist. I thought I was having a heart attack August of 2017. Went to the walk-in clinic like they were gonna be able to help. They did, by doing an EKG and calling an ambulance. Got cardioverted in the ER when the IV drugs did nothing. That was age 34. December 2020, after years of being on various drugs for it including metoprolol and eliquis, I had an ablation surgery. They basically fixed my heart. Now I’m on Carvedilol twice a day, and I’ve had a few random flutters here and there, but nothing like it was before. I thought I was dying before that. Felt like it.

I hope they get you on some mild doses of something that stops it. At the very least, I hope it doesn’t get worse. Living in afib really sucks.