I was sent home on high dose of sotalol and they gave me terrible side effects. It was horrible being on sotalol. I felt so tired, really exhausted, depressed and but fearful as well that I had to take that medication, because well, it was a preventative sort of measure and there was nothing else that they really would do to me, because my heart rate had reverted but to a to a normal sinus rhythm. But after a few months, after a couple of months, one evening, there it was again, it popped up with, I was on sotalol at the time. And so off I went to hospital again, off I was admitted again and I was, my sotalol levels were increased so I was on such a big dose of that stuff, feeling horrendous with it. I was I was sent home. It was around Christmas time. I was sent home with the heavy, heavy dose of sotalol, and my GP was going to like sort it out. So every three days I the sotalol was increased, and I just felt horrendous with it, until my heart rate reverted again.

So I thought about it, the risk that he had given me, otherwise I’m healthy so my risk was quite low but I, nevertheless, decided to go on anticoagulants because of what hed said. And so I went, I then happened to have a visit with the endocrinologist, who said to me, Oh, oh you need to, theres a big risk of stroke. You need to go, you really need to go on it as soon as. And so okay, I got the ball rolling. I went to see the haematologist, who basically said, No, don’t go on it. But nobody says, Yes or No. You know, you have to work it out for yourself, what you’re going to do. So nobody gives you like, everybody is contradicting, you know, it’s you have to like fight for yourself in the end.

So I’m still not on that because of the haematologist, I trusted the haematologist to be right. He did not say, Don’t go on it. But I could read in between the lines that he said, Don’t go on it, as per yet, as per now. So I’m on aspirin and hope for the best.

I was much more active, well, I was, in those two years, one year, one and a half years that I didn’t, I was really getting much more active than I had been and, of course, I have a weight problem and, you know, sitting around is not good. So it very much affects me that way [sniffs] that’s, you know, I’d like to get active again like I was, but I’m I fear, I fear that I’d run into troubles. So

I used to go to the gym. I used to go to the gym like every now three four times a week. I daren’t go there anymore. So, you know, and people say, you know, my nurse, the nurse that I’ve seen says, Oh, just go to the gym. And I say, Yeah, well, what happens when I’m there and I get one of these attacks? She says, Well, you just stop, you know. You stop, you stop moving.

What I would like to see happen is that there is more understanding of this condition and maybe, for people like myself, I need to go to the gym you know, maybe theres, there should be some supervised gym, you know, properly supervised by a cardio-nurse or whatever. You know, so medical people there, that when you get this, that they’re there and they can sort of help you through, because at my gym theres nobody there. It’s unsupervised.

But I don’t think people understand what it’s like. One doctor said to me, the consultant, when I was in admitted the years before and my heart rate, I told you, dropped down to forty. And as he came on with these students or his young doctors about my bed so I said, Well, my heart rate at night seems to drop that much that it goes below forty. I’m a bit worried about going home with that, you know. And he says, Oh he says, Oh, it doesn’t matter. He says, You just get out of bed and do some press ups. You see? That’s the sort of thing. Because its benign condition, doesn’t feel benign to, when you have it [sniffs].

I think people don’t realise, you know, what it feels like. Well, shes very matter of fact, you know, okay, you know. Just, Go to the gym. Go and do the exercises and, you know, if you feel if you feel you get the palpitations, just stop. But, you know, she doesn’t realise how horrendously frightening it is. It’s really, really scary and yeah, so well, you I only know what it feels like and, you know, it’s not funny. So she doesn’t quite, people don’t quite understand and the health professionals neither, you know. When you haven’t had these things yourself, you think, Oh well, that’s a benign condition. There is just a risk of clotting, otherwise. But I don’t feel like that, you know. It’s a major thing to have in your life. Of course, there are worse things [laughs] but it’s real enough. But I would like I would like I just wish they would understand it better and sort of give people like myself, just an opportunity to go to a gym, where theres medical supervision. That’d be lovely, and then I would have enough confidence into getting more active.

Well, it the consultant came the next morning and said, well, it was atrial fibrillation and he said, It’s very strange he says, Because you’re very young to get that. And I was sort of in my mid-fifties or whatever, fifty five or so, and very young to get that, and then I had an undiagnosed goitre, at the time, thyroid and so they, that’s what they discarded that because, and they felt it and they said, Oh, you have you have, yeah, you have a thyroid problem at the same time. So, you know, they connected the two things then, but that that’s not turned out to be the reason I think, because now I haven’t got that thyroid anymore. I’m taking of course, I’m taking thyroxin, which my endocrinologist said it was, that may have been the reason for me sparking off into this continuous atrial fib from as from half a year ago. But I don’t think that was the reason anymore, because I’ve lowered my thyroxin now and then nothing, you know. It’s just there.