Atrial Fibrillation Personal Experience of Xeno Muller, Olympic Gold and Silver Medalist.

I am a 27 year old student father of two and have had episodes of AF. I have had a couple of tests and doctors have not diagnosed me because my AF comes in episodes like you have mentioned. Your video has helped ease my worry thank you.

You could simply prohibit the abuse of caffeine(caffeinism). AF is multifactorial and the combination of all the other factors you've described can certainly explain the episode of paroxysmal AF, not caffeine alone.

Bear in mind that AF can also be asymptomatic at some stage. You can get episodes of paroxysmal AF and episodes of SILENT arrythmia. In your case, the latter could have been asymptomatic for years and decompensated by overloading the autonomic system as you've described it. I've had AF diagnosed at the age of 16 with no symptoms for over 20 years.

I do not flip in and out regularly, there are years in between the episodes. As soon as I am in AF, I have it cardioverted within 12 hours.

The problem with flipping in and out of Afib is the risk of thrwing an embolism from the atrium as the rhythm flips. What does your cardiologist say about this? You should at least be on 81 mg of aspirin a day I suppose.

doctorely

Interesting, we should send my personal case study to the researchers ;-)
Since I am prone to L-AF, I should not have had: Two mugs of instant coffee, 3 coke Zeros, half a liter of caffeined vitamin water, a mocha, stress, absurd running up a gravel hill, dehydrated... that was only on Monday.

I did the same as well, and it has helped with lowering the frequency. However, about a month after giving up I had what felt like a 4-second temporary heart stop (probably some weird arythmia) while running. I was overtrained at that time. Overall, though, the frequency of weird heart murmur dropped right off after giving up coffee. Did you know dripped coffee contains 3x more caffeine than espresso? Anyway... thanks for sharing, I thought I was alone.

Is there anything one can do? I am lean tall, fit, 34, had exactly the kind of L-AF you describe now and then, stopping coffee helped but occasionally (rarely, thanks god) it comes back - evening/night, eating, once when exercising. I row, too.

I'm 34, Xeno, and I sent you a message with more details because it did not fit into this box...

In my case L-AF never happened during effort. BBQ, packing, picking up poo of my dog "skiff", Sitting down like last Monday and a couple of years ago. However, in the case of Rob Waddell, AFIB hit him during the 3rd 2k against Drysdale, what a horrible bad surprise, since his problem was absent for 7 seven years.

You are right. The second episode of AFIB sealed the deal for me with caffeine. To be frank it scared the heck out of me. It is clear that I am susceptible to AFIB, therefore I shall make the mature life long decision to PROHIBIT the entry of caffeine into my system.

Hang in there Zeno
Good to hear you gave the Caff the heave Ho
Hope you get back on the water and win

How did you combine L-AF with much training? A friend of mine fainted once after sparring 1k with me in a skiff. I had to jump out and save him. He fainted and fell with his head in the water.

"Lone AF appears to be more prevalent among males of relative young age. The majority of patients are initially presented with paroxysmal AF most commonly triggered by sleep, exercise, alcohol use, and eating . Moreover, there seems to be a predilection for tall, lean, and physically fit individuals."
Lone atrial fibrillation: pathologic or not?, Med Hypotheses 68 (2007), pp. 281287.

Thank you very much for the information. Today's ECG was of course normal sinus rhythm.
I will be on a drug for the next month and a half.
Xeno

"Lone AF" is an AF with no other pathology associated with this syndrome. I've got AF since the age of 16 with no symptoms until I got 38. AF may occur directly after exercise (generally high intensity) or at night, ect... Stopping caffeine is not always the miracle cure although it reduces the parasympathetic activity and may help a lot.