When I got afib I got a pacemaker (I had brachycardia so the pacemaker sped things up). I had to add a blood thinner to my meds (just a blood pressure medicine, fairly low dose). Then my arthritis kicked in so I started taking ibuprofin (up to 3 meds now). When I had a tooth removed they advised me to get off the blood thinner for a couple days. No problem.

A couple months ago we went away for 2 weeks. My blood thinner meds were due for refill before we got back but since they said it was OK to get off it for a couple days for the tooth, I just went to half dose to make the pills last through the trip. (half dose for about 6 days). When I got back I got the pills refilled and everything seemed to be OK.

A couple days later I had a TIA. I was taking my wife to the grocery store and I wanted to remind her that we needed cereal. But I just couldn't remember the word 'cereal'. Then there were a couple other words I had trouble with. When I got home I lay down and tried to use my phone but it didn't seem to work right. My wife called an ambulance and I went to the hospital with stroke symptoms. The scariest part was that when the TIA started, I was driving. I finished the trip OK fortunately.

The stroke was minor and cleared up in a couple days but the doctors thought it was due to the reduced blood thinner intake. And my blood pressure got pretty high in the hospital. So the 10 mg blood pressure medicine became 20 mg. They added a cholesterol medicine (for safety) although I have never had cholesterol problems. They added another blood pressure medicine.

My wife has an MD from China but didn't have the language ability to get an MD in the USA but she still has the training so she had a sphygmomanometer and we started keeping track of my blood pressure. We finally got a PCP (there's a local shortage) and I went and she raised the blood pressure medication prescription to 40mg. I also got a cardiologist appointment and he told me to quit the cholesterol stuff since it probably wasn't needed. Just get a choleresterol test before my next appointment.

Since we were tracking my blood pressure at home, we noted that it got pretty near normal in a couple days after returning from the hospital. Then it went lower. So we started cutting pills in half. I had gone back to 20mg blood pressure med so now I went back to 10mg, where I was before. The additional blood pressure medicing got cut in half to 5mg.

That was about 2 months ago and my blood pressure is now normal and has been for a couple months. I'm still on the additional blood pressure med (at half the original dose) and I'll ask the cardiologist if I can drop that. At least I'm back to only 4 different meds and if I can drop the added med I can get back where I was before.

Will be 88 in May-3 days ago had a Transthoracic Echocardiogram. Dr. said "Congratulations" test was normal-I'm happy for that.

My wife's assessment of the situation is that the PCP we saw was young. My wife thinks that young people want to throw everything they have at a problem to fix it quickly (which is why my old blood pressure med went up by a factor of 4) rather than taking a measured approach and more frequent checks.

The cardiologist said my afib is back but at my age, just live with it. The remedies sometimes suggested (ablation, watchman insertion) are not always effective, at least for the long term, and the surgery isn't recommended over 80. It comes and goes and I'm no longer working the farm so I'll just have to live with it.

But at least I'm getting old and not stopping here.