Alcohol Induced Atrial Fibrillation
 

Greetings everyone,

Well here I am back - I thought I'd never return to these forums with any other alcohol related problems after attempting to go sober, but how wrong (naive?) was I?

The last 5 years of my life have been an alcohol-induced haze. I'm only 24. From I was 19 until I was 21, I drank at least 50cl of vodka/coke every night for two years. This ended abruptly when I developed stomach problems (gastritis - inflammation of stomach lining). I then went on to Librium & Thiamine and stayed off the drink for a short period.

Then, for one year, I felt I had my drinking under control by only drinking beer on the weekends. This worked well for me and I didn't drink as much, units wise, as I did on vodka.

But then I thought "you know what, I think I could handle vodka again". BAD MISTAKE. For the next 2 years I was drinking about one litre of vodka/coke per weekend.

In December I found that I was having to drink more to get the same effect and in January I drank ~50cl of vodka each night for three nights when I was sick.

Then it happened. Immediately after vomiting, I felt my heart go into a weird thumping irregular beat. I went to A&E where they Dx Fast Atrial Fibrillation. Consultant said Alcohol induced, lay off the drink for a few weeks and it should hopefully not come back.

My ECG and 24hr ECG were normal, now I'm just waiting on an echo. It's extremely unlikely anything will be found wrong with my heart (thankfully) after the normal ECGs.

Has anyone else had this happen? Did the AF return?

This time vodka/coke is in the bin for good (I hope):thanks

Glad to hear you are OK and welcome back to SR. I didn't experience afib exactly, but I did end up in the ER due to heart palpitations and dangerously high BP/heart rate as a direct result of my drinking/withdrawals.

We cannot diagose what might have happened, glad you are going back for more tests. We can help you stay sober though if that is your goal.

A year or two before I stopped drinking, Murray H, a friend and insane alcoholic, never tried AA or anything else, had a heart attack. He was twenty eight. I visited him in hospital and was struck by how unwell he was, and how short of breath. The doctors told him no more booze. Discharged him after a few days with meds etc. went straight to the bar to celebrate, got drunk, had another heart attack which he did not survive.

Maybe you are different to Murray. Perhaps you will realise the serious nature of you condition and do something about it while you still can. We can help you with that.

My ex husband (alcoholic/addict) had tons of heart issues due to drinking. Coke certainly can effect your heart as well. Once he got sober it seemed to get better. In fact when he ODed, I thought it was his heart. Little did I know he was drinking again and abusing his prescription meds. (I was sober at the time, my problem drinking began when he filed for divorce)
I have a few lovely issues from drinking heavily in last 4 years.
Diabetes
Hypothyroidism
Fatty liver
Elevated cholesterol
Add a bout of pancreatitis (9 days in ICU followed by 5 days in general pop) The pain was beyond compare. I prayed aloud between heaving straight bile on ER floor. Finally a nurse figured out what was going on. Dilaudid barely scratched surface of pain for next 12 hours. And then the starving for 5 days? Not at all even remotely close to fun.
Lest I fail to mention what I've done to my brain? Short term memory is shot.

Add in my continued smoking of cigarettes and I'm half in the pine box.

At least I eat organic..😉

The things my heart did when drinking was one of the reasons I stopped. I recognized that it was not normal and kind of scary. Add in always being sweaty and exhausted (doing nothing) and I had had enough.

The gastritis will keep coming back too. Of course you might not care if you get pancreatitis. Alcohol is mean in your insides, and it's the fact that it has ethanol in it, not that it's vodka.

Well thanks for making me never want to touch the **** again.

I had the same thing back in my 20s, I remember being at work the day after a particularly heavy night and feeling very lightheaded with a weird fluttering in my chest. I felt my pulse and it was so strange, three strong beats and then a pause. By the time I got to the clinic it had returned to normal but I did see my GP about it and he sent me for an ECG. In the meantime I was quite regularly suffering from a very fast heartbeat and the same fluttering in my chest. Everything came back fine with the tests and, since I lied to my doctor about how much I drank (I had no idea at the time that alcohol could possibly be the cause) we put it down to stress at work and I was prescribed beta blockers which stopped the palpitations. Of course I continued to drink as much as ever, believing myself that the issue was stress, however looking back now it was clearly the booze causing those problems and I realise how lucky I am not to have done myself permanant damage or even died - without wishing to sound like a drama queen :D

Madnellie - did you continue on the beta blockers? Or was it just one prescription? My father was an alcoholic and drink into his 70s. He also had arrhythmia, which I believe was alcohol induced and took Tenormin.

With me- anxiety

Yes, I get the weird, out of sync heart beats. I also believe it is anxiety related. Seems to happen as soon as I walk into my house every single day after work. I am thinking maybe I am just overwhelmed at home. It only seems to last a few minutes, but those minutes are complete hell!

I continued on the beta blockers for quite a while and they completely prevented the palpitations. After I came off the problems came back, but intermittently and I still assumed they were stress related. Since I quit the booze almost a year ago I can count the incidents I've had on one hand and they were very short fluttering feelings with no lightheadedness or skipped heartbeats.
Did your dad find the Tenormin helped? I can't remember which type of beta blockers I took, but I would imagine they are all pretty similar.