Hey,
Since I was 18 years old, I've suffered from paroxysmal afib. After a few years, I went through the medication mill and nothing worked, only made it worse. So I opted for the ablation procedure. After 3 of those, each one just making it worse, I was begging for a cut-and-sew maze (i.e open heart surgery) just to potentially get some quality of life back.
I had the surgery and it improved my life but not by much, it sort-of just undid what all the ablations had caused, meaning I was back to zero.
Years went by and I suffered a lot of mental issues, depression especially. At one point I was offered Sertraline, see if it would do anything for me and I hesitantly said yes, despite my poor track record with every single medicine making me worse, every single time.
I was on it for 3-4 weeks until I noticed a metric ton of ectopics. Never in my life had I dealt with ectopics, it was either afib or normal rhythm.
Was feeling weak, light-headed, sensitive to light and generally just felt really awful. I talked to my psychiatrist who gave me green light to taper off the Sertraline. However, I just said 'sod it' and went cold turkey (I know, I know). Though, she did say, she didn't believe there was a connection between the medication and the ectopics, which I find very hard to believe.
After a few days, the ectopics got better. A week later they had improved quite a bit. However, they never got much better than that. After a week or two, I was put on a small dosis of beta blocker (50mg metoprolol) which cleared it up completely! For 3 months they were gone, could even step down to 25mg which held it very well.
After those 3 months, I stopped the metoprolol and realized my ectopics were gone. This lasted for another 3 months when it suddenly happened, they started coming back one night ...
However, they seemed to have changed, in both intensity and how they worked. Less intensive but seemed to happen when lying down at night, rather than just a constant. Still also happened after exercise.
And oddly enough, the beta blockers don't seem to work with these. They might reduce the intensity a bit but they aren't holding them at all.
This is where I'm at now, 3-4 months ago since they started back up and I'm at my wit's end. When they happen, my body just feels awful. I'm not sleeping very well, wake up at ungodly hours in the morning and I can do absolutely nothing about them, they seem to react to nothing. Tried all the supplements in the ectopic book, tried stopping caffeine, lost weight, nothing does it.
It feels like it's in constant motion and has been since it started 10-ish months ago. Keeps changing how it works, how it reacts and I keep hoping it's just the Sertraline that screwed up something and it'll pop back into place at some point but ... 10 months later, it's starting to look bleak.
Every health care professional I've seen keeps chalking the Sertraline and ectopics connection up to 'pure coincidence' but the timeline is just too coincidental for Sertraline not to have played a part.
Apologies for the lengthy post but I'm just looking for answers other than how harmless they are, because it's driving me absolutely crazy, looking for the connection, why it's constantly changing and evolving.
Has anyone heard or come across a Sertraline / SSRI and Ectopics connection? Just desperate for some input.
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