Heart Arrhythmia Information

1. My Atrial Fibrillation Data and Opinions
I hope that you find my A-fib data and highly-opinionated comments useful. The best treatment may be no treatment at all - 76 months now and I am still kicking (March 2003 - July 2009).


2. My Personal Atrial-Fib Data


3. Atrial Fibrillation Information

Vaughn's Summaries

Medical Summaries

A-Fib Data
Blood Pressure Monitors
Blood Pressure Range
Blood Type Summary

Cholesterol Range Chart
Heart Diagram
Lowering Blood Pressure
Prescription Heart Drugs

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540-860

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2008 Musings - 6-12-08

Well, 5 years and 3 months later, I have not changed my mind about anything. Now, they treat children's migraine with Propanolol. Go to he||, you freaks. You have NO IDEA what you are doing.

The way to treat migraine in children is to REDUCE STRESS, not by smashing them with a chemical sledgehammer.

1. No "TREATMENT" for me. I attribute my current well-being to the avoidance of any medical treatment.

2. All the "recent developments" in A-Fib are all the same - TREAT! I treat myself, with a daily 81 mg aspirin, CoQ-10, vitamin D, fish oil, flax seed oil, and green tea.

Remarkably, there are almost no articles addressing "permanent" Atrial Fibrillation. I guess they just give up on the "tough cookies". They usually change the discussion to "rate control". Tachycardia has NEVER, EVER been an issue for me, yet that is where the discussion goes. Gotta try and treat SOMETHING, right? WRONG! Half of all doctors are unable to distinguish between heart rate and heart rhythm.

"Frankensteinish" always comes to mind, when I read the literature discussing Atrial Fibrillation treatments.
1. Cardioversion - totally ineffective for permanent AF
2. Fry the heart with RF ablation - kill heart cells
3. Slice the heart with the Maze Procedure.
4. Implant a pacemaker, which can malfunction at any time
5. Try chemicals which can EASILY kill you, such as digoxin, which can also kill you if you stop taking it cold turkey.

NO.----- NO, NO, NO. ----- NO WAY!

2006 Musings - 3-19-06

Well, I have made my 3rd anniversary with PERMANENT atrial fibrillation. The only change is my further contempt for the pharma-medical complex. I believe that the avoidance of any treatment is the secret to my longevity. The bias to TREAT, is profound. Doctors treat - that's what they do.

Many doctors would love to have treated me with electric shock, "heart slicing", and poisonous pharmaceutical drugs, even BEFORE I went permanent. The very day I took Propranolol, I went into PERMANENT a-fib. That's a fact.

ANY doctor can prescribe heart medications. This is wrong. ONLY a heart specialist is qualified to prescribe an appropriate medication, and probably even not then.

This is the most dangerous class of drugs, whose side effects are FREQUENTLY worse than the ailment being treated. NO DOCTOR, NOT SPECIFICALLY TRAINED IN HEART MEDICINE, SHOULD EVER BE ALLOWED TO PRESCRIBE THESE DRUGS.

BEWARE of the pharma-medical complex's wild-west approach of "let's try this, let's try that". It can kill you.

2005 Musings - 1-29-05

I haven't done anything to this page for quite some time. That's a good thing. It means that I am not thinking about my permanent a-fib. I believe that I have just gotten used to it.

There is a HUGE bias to "treat".
If they don't treat, they don't make much money.

Cut first, then provide an incredibly esoteric discussion of what went wrong, consisting of the canned gibberish drivel, so that it appears that it was not their fault. BULLSPIT!

In MOST CASES, avoiding A-fib treatment is the best way to avoid lethal consequences. I am now CERTAIN of this.

And then I do a little reading, and get really piffed off. The medical establishment is so full of it, it is coming out their ears. They obfuscate EVERYTHING. They don't want you to figure out just how little they really know. They liberally use TLAs (three-letter-acronyms) which they don't define. Not only deceptive, but horrible journalism. They talk about "higher" and "lower", but won't give you the numbers. Without saying what high and low is, they cannot be challenged. BULLSPIT! I'm sick of it.

Mealy-mouthed self-promoting know-nothings.
ZERO humility
100% Arrogance
Medical establishment parrots, pushing the profitable pharmaceutical company promoted, and marginal-at-best most lethal class of drugs.

PAF - the term is thrown about with reckless abandon. In some articles, it refers to one thing, in others, something else. Such as
PAF - Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation
PAF - Persistent Atrial Fibrillation
PAF - Permanent Atrial Fibrillation

How about being SPECIFIC, so we can tell what you are talking about. Aha! That's the point. This provides another point of plausible deniability, (That's not what I meant.) Yeah, right.

How about PAF1, PAF2, and PAF3? No good - then we could pin them down.

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A-Fib Summary Diagram

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Arrhythmia Pulse-Pacing Diagram

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The Doctors

"Here, try this".

When I first sought treatment for my A-fib, the doctor gave me Propranolol, which he couldn't even pronounce. I damn near collapsed - couldn't breath, sleep, walk 100 yards.
The doctor's solution: "Double the amount". WRONG!

It also drove me from paroxysmal A-fib to permanent A-Fib, and my HRV (heart rate variation) increased dramatically. What the medication was supposed to help, was made MUCH WORSE. I don't care what the medication company literature says, this stuff can be BAD. Expect respiratory spasms if you try it, in which every breath is a painful struggle, BOTH in and out.

Through Internet research, I have read the following statement on various prestigious medical sites: "Propranolol is contraindicated in cases of vegally-mediated atrial fibrillation (VMAF)." In other words, it WORSENS the condition.
So why did he give it to me?

Click here:
Medication and doctors - leading cause of dearth

Why? Most doctors don't know what they are doing regarding heart treatment.

No doctor can be an expert on everything. They would have to be a genius with a perfect memory, and read all day long, every day.

Doctors are forced to be parrots, repeating what they have been told by the pharmaceutical companies, which has everything to do with money, and not as much to do with your well-being.

Never believe what a single doctor tells you.
Be wary of what EVERY doctor tells you.

Doctors treat symptoms, not causes.

It frequently is just too difficult to look for a cause.
Treating only symptoms ensures repeat visits.

Cardioversion - To restore sinus rhythm, give an electrical jolt so massive that it discolors the skin. Definition of "successful" - it lasts more than 24 HOURS!!! Great! Do me again tomorrow!
Reverse electro-qution. Hit me again!

Chemical - "The heart medications are the most dangerous class of medications".

Ablation - Fry some heart cells with high-power RF energy, to make the heart better. Invasive. Poor success rate. Risk of infection.

Mechanical - Become a bio-mechanical robot man, relying upon an electronic pacemaker, which can be unreliable due to various factors. Invasive. Risk of infection.

Maze procedure - Cut slices in the heart to make it better. Extremely risky and invasive, poor success rate.
Seldom done unless your chest has been opened for some other reason, such as a bypass.

Myth - "Medicine is a science."

Biology is a science. Medicine is a business. Curing provides only one-time short-term income. Treatment makes the doctors and medication companies tons of money, so neither are very anxious to see you get well any too soon.

Relevance of Above Comments

The above comments do not apply to all doctors -
Just most of them.
There are obviously many fine doctors who
- are honest
- can think for themselves, and
- are motivated more by humanitarian reasons, than pecuniary reasons.
But they are hard to find.

I went to a Persian doctor for 10 years (heart specialist, now retired), who was extremely straight talking to me.
He told me the TRUTH. He also told me things that other doctors would never tell you. He was a person first, a doctor second.
This is what YOU want.

The Pharmaceutical Companies

Pharmaceutical Company -
"Sudden death from Amiodarone is about 1 per 50,000."

My guess is that it is closer to 500, or 1%. There are just too many people reporting their own personal stories of the exit of relatives from this medication. The half-life of this medication is 50 days, which means that if you suddenly have a bad reaction, there is nothing you can do. Fifty days after you stop taking it, one-half of it is still in your system.

On the other hand, 99% is excellent.
What if someone gave you these odds?
Would YOU take that 1% chance?
With your life?
Should we accept 1000 "mistakes", out of 100,000?
Ten out of a thousand? Not too bad.
But then, just how "cured" are the 99,000?

Myth - "Medication is prescribed to cure."

Medication is prescribed to treat, not to cure.
Medication is prescribed to make money. The primary concern among doctors is not the effectiveness, but "how well the medication can be tolerated". Why? The side effects are often far worse than what is being treated.
(Phen-Fen, Vioxx, etc.)

The heart medications are the most dangerous class of all medications, with the all-too-frequent side effect of cessation of life.
The Pharmaceutical Lobby

"You should take Warfarin (rat bait), because it is far more effective than aspirin for preventing strokes."

- Pharmaceutical Companies



"The efficacy of anticoagulation in preventing arterial embolism has not been established."

"You are going to have a stroke if you do not take Warfarin (Coumadin)."
NOT SO! Warfarin is a cruel hoax. It is all about money.
- It is expensive.
- Its effectiveness is multiplied by grapefruit juice and herbs (aspirin, acetaminophen, bilberry, dong quai (angelica sinensis), garlic, ginger, ginko, Pau D'Arco), and reduced by many foods high in Vitamin K foods, avocado, CO Q-10, green tea, ginseng,
----> and hence
- It requires constant , inconvenient, expensive blood monitoring.
- Too much can cause brain hemorrhaging, and stomachs that won't stop bleeding.
- As used in rat bait, it works by filling the lungs with blood.

((Am I supposed to abandon aspirin, broccoli, garlic, ginger, avocado, CO Q-10, green tea, seaweed, spinach - all good stuff - for a 60-year old rat-control agent? I think not.))

American College of Chest Physicians :
"Aspirin anticoagulation therapy is recommended over Warfarin in patients under 65, in those patients who show no evidence of cardiovascular disease."
That's me! So why was there the insistence that I take Coumadin? An ill-informed physician, marching to the orders of the drug companies. This is THE NORM, not the exception.

The pharmaceutical manufacturers love to use scare tactics to sell more medications, using doctors as the vehicle. I now take 81 mg aspirin daily, at 1/200 the cost of Coumadin.

Speaking of scare tactics, your chance of death from stroke by not using Coumadin is alleged to be TWICE as likely. Sounds bad, doesn't it? So, instead of 1 chance out of 1000 (or whatever) that I will die, there are 2 chances out of 1000. So what? Twice a minuscule quantity is STILL a minuscule quantity. Gimme a break.

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Disclaimer
The author has no medical training.
NO MEDICAL ADVICE IS OFFERED OR IMPLIED.
STATEMENTS ON THIS PAGE MAY NOT BE CORRECT.
The sole purpose of this page is to OPEN YOUR EYES, and encourage further research on your part.
You may not need to use a Mainstream-Medical sledge hammer.

I have NO medical training.

Why do I appear cynical?
1. Personal experience - plus friends' experiences
2. My mother was a Medical Records Librarian for 13 years. I used to harass her to "tell me stuff".
3. I am getting damned feisty in my old age.

I wish you all the best in your quest for knowledge, and hopefully relief from that quivering attention-stealer.

Thank you very much for your time.

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