Help Needed for
A Patient with Rapid Auricular Fibrillation
The following is a message from my father. I would appreciate
any advice and information on how to improve his condition. Please
respond to j…@erc.msstate.edu. Thank you!
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I have had “rapid auricular fibrillation ” (rapid Af.) for
15 years. The symptom has come and gone from time to time. I
have visited many doctors in China but the situation has not
improved. Over the years, the period during which I am sick is getting
longer and longer, while the time between sick periods is getting
shorter and shorter. Lately, it has reached the point that the rapid
Af. is almost continuos with only very short breaks in
between (say 40 days of sick time with one day of normal condition).
I would appreciate any information on how to slow down the progress
of this illness.
The following is more detailed information:
I was born in January 1934. One day in February 1992, I suddenly
felt uncomfortable in my chest and was sent to a hospital. The
doctor dignosed it as " rapid auricular
fibrillation" (rapid Af.), with an auricular rate of 440/minute
and a ventricular rate of 120/minute. All other exams and lab tests
turned out to be normal. The heart rate returned to normal
three hours later. But the doctor I visited thought that I
still should be hospitalized. I stayed in hosptial for a week,
during which I took Digoxinum and had Ledilanid injections.
After seven days, I was discharged from the hosptial
and returned to normal work. Fifteen days later, the rapid Af.
struck me for the second time and then became chronic since.
The symptom has come and gone from time to time. In the early
stage, I could recover even without taking any medication. The
symptom typically last for several days. The doctors I visited
had not been able to identify the cause of my problem. Since
December 1983, I have been using Tabellae Amiodarone. The
dosage is 0.2g x 3/dayily when the symptom is on and 0.2g/daily
when the situation is normal.
In the last fifteen years, the fast Af. happend more than
five hundred times. Every time after the symptom disappeared,
the situation remained normal for about 3 – 5 days before the
next round of rapid Af. The number of days when my heart
is in rapid Af. has been increasing steadily over the years.
If we define
r = days sick/(days sick + days normal),
then the ratio r was 10 – 20% in 1982 – 1986, and 30 – 60%
in 1987 – 1993. After 1994, it reached 70 – 90% and became
almost continous rapid Af. The two longest periods with
the rapid Af. was from July – August 1994 for 38 days,
and from November 1996 to January 1997 for 95 days. The
heart rate was 60/minute.
General physical exam shows that I have enlarged auricula
on the left side with a diameter of 37mm. Cholesterol is
245mg/dl and Triglycerides is 194mg/dl. All other lab tests
are normal.
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Jianping Zhu e-mail: j…@erc.msstate.edu or
Professor j…@math.msstate.edu
Department of Mathematics and Statistics Phone: (601)325-3414 or
Mississippi State University (601)325-2839
Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA fax: (601)325-0005
"Not everything that counts can be counted; and not everything
that can be counted counts" – Einstein
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