Like more than 6 million other people, I suffer from Atrial Fibrillation… otherwise known as AFib.

The purpose of and inspiration for this blog site is provide information, support and hope for fellow suffers of AFib who wish to deal with their condition through diet, exercise, nutrition and other natural / holistic means and avoid having to have an invasive procedure to attempt to correct their irregular heart rhythm.

In July 2013 I was diagnosed with chronic stress induced cardiac arrhythmia and atrial fibrillation…  Ultimately, this was my body’s way of telling me that 26 years of using stress, adrenaline, anxiety and caffeine to be better at my job was bad for me.

This diagnosis, and everything that has followed since, has ultimately been a strange blessing in my life.

After a battery of diagnostic tests over a period of a few weeks, the paths of treatment were laid out for me, with the primary recommendation being a cardiac ablation for my AFib.

At some deep inner level, I could not bring myself to consider the intentional creation of scar tissue on my heart in the hope of disrupting my irregular heart beat.  While I was in pretty bad shape (I’ll get into that in another post), the testing I underwent gave me some good news… that there was no structural damage to my heart or its valves.  It had become weak, and strained, and inflamed, and enlarged, an my Ejection Fraction (EF) was scary bad, but once I found out that my heart was not damaged, and could heal, I chose my own path.

This path I was chose to follow (well actually blaze, because I couldn’t find one that already existed to follow), was a radical reinvention of who I was and how I operated, what I did, what I ate, how I slept and how I processed the world around me.

I consumed everything I could read on the subject…. articles, websites, posts, medical studies on the results of nutritional support for all elements of my cardiac health and recovery, etc. There was some helpful information out there, but not enough. The last 36 months for me have been a work in progress, a well-intentioned experiment, if you will, with me as the test subject.

AFib is a scary diagnosis… make no mistake.  Being symptomatic with AFib is worse. Feeling your heart trying to climb out of your chest… feeling weak, unstable, light-headed,

I may not be able to avoid having an invasive procedure forever, but I can try, and if I can put it off for another 10 or 15 years and live a HIGH QUALITY LIFE in the meantime, then perhaps the procedure will evolve, become more refined, and have a much higher initial success rate than it currently does.

My cardiologist, my electrophysiologist and my PCP are all blown away by my results and what I have been able to do. I am now off all medications except the anti-arrhythmic drug I take (no side effects at all with that), I am NOT in AFib, and am now scheduled to see my cardiologist and electrophysiologist annually, not twice a year or more.

I am not a doctor, nor make no claims of any kind. I don’t promise to cure or heal. But I do know what I have done for myself in the last 36 months, I know how I feel, I know what my doctors think, and I know what the people around me think. I know that the quality of my life is now completely amazing. While I don’t run marathons or do triathlons, but I can push myself hard during daily workouts and my energy levels (and libido) are back to what they were when I was 26. Not bad for a previously shattered and burned out 52 year old.

Please join me on this journey to AFib Health, Wellness & Fitness and let me show you what I have done to not only manage and control our condition, but to reclaim (and enhance) the quality of my life, and to begin living it better than ever.