Ian's chance Atrial Fibrillation diagnosis
Ian Chalmers was
diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation 15 years ago. And it was
completely by chance.
He takes up the story: "I was a football referee, refereeing
three to four games every week.
"Because of the refereeing I was relatively fit and I was asked,
along with other referees, to take part in some research to
look
at how the heart rate went up during exercise.
"I went to do a treadmill test and they were monitoring my
heart. They immediately stopped the test and I was admitted to
hospital."
Ian was diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation
(AF)
"I was devastated. It's the seriousness of having something wrong
with your heart.
Not everyone with atrial fibrillation has symptoms, so it's really important people check their pulse
"When I look back there were signs that something was wrong. I
collapsed in a supermarket and I once passed out as a passenger in
a car.
"But I quickly recovered so it didn’t seem as if there was
anything really wrong. I also experienced pain in the backs of my
legs when I was running, which was only later attributed to
atrial
fibrillation.
"After refereeing I would be sweating really hard and I’d have
some breathlessness, but I just put it down to
getting older. I just thought I’d need to reduce the
refereeing.
"My cardiologist was very good and always reminded me to take my
pulse.
"Not everyone with atrial fibrillation has symptoms, so it's
really important people check their
pulse. It's so easy to do and it only takes a few
minutes.
"My diagnosis happened entirely by chance - I certainly never
imagined there was something wrong with my heart. I know I was
really lucky – don’t leave it to chance yourself, take your
pulse."
Ian now regularly takes Warfarin to reduce his risk of stroke
and gets his blood checked at his local clinic. He has had a
pacemaker fitted and an
ablation procedure.