Posted by Carl Plaskett on December 30, 2003 at 07:10:37:
In Reply to: coffee posted by Anthony on December 29, 2003 at 11:14:48:
Anthony: Have you determined your frequency/length of episodes with an event or Holter monitor? Perhaps I am wrong, but having events of 12-48 hours long once/month SEEMS unlikely. I know that the first time I wore an event monitor, my cardiologist said that I had "dozens & dozens" of events per day for several days, but I was only aware of one or two of several minutes, and that was early in my afib diagnosis. I suspect that you may be having more afib than you realize, or some major "trigger" like stress, anxiety, fatique/dehydration, alcohol consumption might be bringing on these single once-a-month episodes.
Caffinated coffee/espresso did have an effect on whether or not afib started. I never stopped drinking decaf while I had afib, and it didn't SEEM to affect me.