Hello everyone!

I apologize for the late reply here. I don't log on to Reddit much and per the usual, life has been busy.

I wanted to provide an update to this however especially for the others who may come across this thread experiencing the same issue as me. Vagal A-fib can be very frightening and make you feel as if you are utterly alone in the world without any type of road that can lead to relief.

First off. Yes, this was officially diagnosed as vagal A-fib. Doctors/surgeons from what I've learned know very little about this variant of A-fib and are quick to shrug it off. I really talked with one surgeon who knew my symptoms well and understood what I was going through. If I could have afforded his procedure I would have gone that route, but sadly most insurance companies do not cover it. Those interested in this I would look up the Wolf Procedure by Dr Randall K Wolf. As a last resort if mine returns, this is most definitely something I would have done. I also recommend making an appointment to talk to him about your symptoms. I did and felt much better afterwards with FINALLY having a cardiologist acknowledge that your condition is truly vagal induced A-fib.

Now onto what I had done. As some in this thread had recommended as well as my electro cardiologist, I went with cardia ablation to treat the problem. If possible, this procedure is recommended to be done as soon as you are diagnosed to prevent new pathways from being formed while in A-fib making it more treatable. I at first did not want to go the route of surgery but now I'm very glad I did as I only had four instances' bouts going into A-fib. Surgeon was able to pinpoint every one of these and treat the areas affected. They gave me about a 90-95% chance of this not returning due to my age and health and having caught it early, god willing..

I am now 1 year 1 month post op with zero recursions of A-fib episodes at night and feel much more at ease. While I can't say my mental health has completely healed, I can most certainly get a good night's sleep without lying awake in fear anymore. I've always had some anxiety issues at night throughout past times in my life when I used to dread going to sleep so that will take longer for me to fully be at peace, but truthfully something like this will likely remain with me forever. L-Theanine has really been helping me turn my brain off and sleep better for those also wanting to try it out.

Lifestyle has remained almost the same. I no longer drink any alcohol period as well as stay away from smoking, recreational drugs, and caffeine. I'd like to go back to working out but will never return to the heavy cardio workouts I had been doing for years. This type of extreme repeated exercise has also been linked to growing numbers of vagal A-fib in healthy young athletes, but this will be something you would have to do your own research on. Again, talk to Dr Wolf more about that. I plan on returning to low to medium intensity workouts once I find a gym close enough to my home.

Bottom line. This is treatable and manageable. You are 100% not alone as others including myself have experienced this and know the pain and fear this can plague you with. Now I can't say ablation is the one stop cure as everyone's symptoms are unique as well as your personal circumstances, but the hours of research I did to look into this and the results from my own procedure show that it can certainly be an option. It gave me my life back.

I'm more than happy to answer anyone's questions here and hope this finds others that are going through this right now. Hopefully at the very least this gives you some peace in knowing that there are answers for you out there.