As a fit and active runner in 2012 I had no idea what was happening to me when I started having to pull out of running races with a racing heartbeat accompanied by a total drain of energy.   After a lot of investigations including having to go round with a portable ECG for a week, I was diagnosed with a condition called Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation (PAF), which causes episodes of irregular and racing heartbeat.

I was offered two choices, drugs (beta blockers) to control my heartbeat, or a "key hole" procedure called a Cardiac Ablation which involves destroying tissue that carry the wrong electrical signals to the heart.  At the time, the operation soured seriously scary so I opted to try the drugs.

At first, the drugs worked well.  I wasn't as fast a runner as I was before, but at least I didn't get any PAF episodes.  After a time however the drugs became less effective and even with an increased dose, my running life started to be disrupted by PAF again.  It was at that stage in late 2014 that I decided to go for the ablation and I went in to have the procedure in January 2015.

I can not tell you how grateful I am to those who developed and performed this procedure.  Since that day in Leeds General Infirmary I haven't had a single out-of-place heartbeat and am now completely off beta blockers and all other anti fibrillation drugs.   It has been a long slow process getting back to full running fitness but now I feel able to tackle the London Marathon and have obtained a place.  It seems right and proper to support the British Heart Foundation.  Not so many years ago, this kind of operation simply didn't exist and I would have had to learn to live with this condition.

There are many people today who have to live with heart rhythm problems which can't be treated in the same way mine was and so I am supporting the BHF to help, in a small way, future research into heart conditions such as Atrial Fibrillation.

Follow my MarathonMann blog at http://marathonmann.uk

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