Sometimes when things are looking hopeless and unpromising it is better to start searching for a way out than waiting for a wonder.
After spending some time losing myself in self-pity and a bunch of Atrial Fibrillation (AFib, AF) episodes later, I slowly realized that there are some factors regarding the duration, intensity and frequency of the episodes I can influence myself. For example it seemed to me that walking arround while being in AFib made the duration of the episodes a little bit shorter in average. Also after walking a couple of minutes the intensity of the episode felt to be more tolerable, like something in my body has adapted itself to this condition. Furthermore in maybe three cases the episodes stopped while I was meditating or did breathing excercises.
So, but all of this was not really 100% reproducable and therefore insufficient for an engineer’s mind. I needed something more tangible.
One day after my frustration grew to a new maximum, I decided to check the internet again for some “news” (mostly in the past this ended up with much more frustration and a bad feeling, so I decided to stop doing that.) but that time I found an interesting “hint”. Some of the “AFib-pages” were referencing that “mystic professional athlete” that had stopped his episodes by doing some workout. But sadly it was never anything said about how he or she really exactly did it (or I haven’t found it). My thought was: “If I can find a way to stop the episodes by my own too, without medication or other harmful procedures, that would be “tangible” enough and a real game changer for me.”.
But as I will show in the following, in my experience it is not just doing “some workout” (that approach could end up in frustration and maybe danger), it is a little bit more tricky in my eyes.
So I decided to start my first self experiment, the next time when I got an episode.
Until this point I would have never thought about that it could be a good idea to put some significant “extra load” to my heart while being in AFib. I remembered all the times when I had “to climb” stairs while having an AFib episode and that felt very uncomfortable, not like a good idea worth to intensify.
(Note: The procedure I will describe next is not a medically or scientificly proven procedure and potentially might contain high risk of harming yourself. Furthermore it is in an experimental stage, so please read the whole post to get a better picture of my lessons learned. If you decide to do a similiar attempt yourself please first align your decision together with your doctor or professional health care provider. Please always remind the Disclaimer as a condition for the use of this blog.)
The next time being in AFib I tried something “completely stupid”, the opposite of common sense I would say. I jumped on my “Home-Trainer” and started cycling carefully. At this point my AFib was running for some Hours already, because I wasn’t at home when it started and I wanted to go back first. First nothing happend, I increased the intensity, nothing happend again, I increased it more ( a short time I thought I will drop down the machine and that’s it – bye bye my friend, that was a great idea, but your last.), but than I felt a big difference, my heart felt strong again, I was out of AFib. I couldn’t believe it. Was it only a coincidence or has my interval training really stopped my AFib. Nevertheless the overall duration of that episode was significantly smaller than usual.
The next episode I tried the same procedure again. At this time I still was in AFib for some hours because I had to go home first. I jumped on the machine and started cycling. First nothing happend, I increased my intensity, decreased it, increased it, increased it again and than “Bam…” back into sinus. High Five! Could that be still a coincidence? (Are there any coincidences in universe?)
I couldn’t await my next episode to check out what kind of “magic” is going on here. The next “one” came when I was at home this time and directly jumped on my “Unicorn” and started cycling. Nothing happend, I tried it 20 minutes and than I was too exhausted to go on. What happend, why didn`t it work again. I was frustrated.
Ok, lets see what happens next time, I thought. First it did not work again, but only at the beginning. I decided to try it again and again every hour to see what happens and than “Bingo, back into sinus” again. It worked after the third attemp.
The next 15 times my new “BackToSinus”-procedure always worked, so I was sure it is no coincidence anymore. With every episode I tried it more often to convert myself, not only every hour again, to get a smaller “resolution”. Mostly per every trial I did three intervals. Every Interval from low (1 min.) to high (max. 45 sec.) intensity (but never excessive!!). At least my AFib episode duration time decreased to somewhere between 2,25 hours and 40 minutes (my best reading), comming from 7.5 to 23 hours.
Still a little bit unclear to me is why my procedure starts to work after a certain (unknown) amount of time. This is something I still have to determine.
My simple (non scientific) thoughts about this is that the heart might be in a specific state while the episode starts (electrically and chemically). Depending on how much out of balance the whole system is, it needs some more or less individual time to stabilize itself first, until it is able to convert back to sinus. In my experience there are two important points in timeline. That one when the heart can be converted by interval training and later the other one when it might convert by itself.
Another finding for me was that I could influence myself very much how balanced the mineral level of my body is. Example: After doing some days a rice diet (only rice and carrots), the new procedure did not work, no matter how much i tried it that day. After 12 hours I gave up. I was quite dissapointed but I remembered that there might be some more factors that influence AFib. After taking a meal that was rich in Magnesium, Potassium, Calcium and different vitamins my heart converted itself back to sinus rhythm after 30 minutes from alone.
Note: I learned until this point it is very important not to overstress the heart, a result can’t be forced. When it was ready to convert I was always used a high but not excessive intensity of my procedure. Sometimes it might not convert by the procedure, because of other factors that need to be fixed first, like mineral level, lack of vitamins, biochemical status of the heart etc..
Here is a deeper explanation of my “BackToSinus”-Procedure.
Please always remind the Disclaimer as a condition for the use of this blog.
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