Help! I have so much weight to lose

OK, so today I am going walking. Pedro has gone awol for the second time this week so my next job is to find him.

I am posting this now to leave myself a note for the future. So you don't have to read this if you want a rest from my ramblings. Having typed this up I will remember it regardless of whether I read it again or not. It concerns extreme exercise. I have said elsewhere that I believe 2 of my blood pressure tablets combined helped to cause my heart to go into AF. I also read that extreme exercise coupled with low magnesium levels can do this too. I believe my own AF was caused by both of these factors combined. I was very breathless in January one year when I had been shovelling snow (1 ft deep) from our drive ( maybe 25 metres ish) so that family could drive in without having to stop on the road which was treacherous with ice and snow. AF was diagnosed at my next appointment with my GP. I am now only taking 1 blood pressure tablet and will not attempt anything extreme until I have, with my doctor's approval, ceased to take it and remained stable without it for very many months. I will check my magnesium levels are not low and make sure they are topped up with the supplement that the naturopath gave me before trying anything at all strenuous. One of the tablets was a water tablet, and I have stopped taking this now because I don't see the point of taking nutrients into the body and then losing them again with a diuretic. This was the reason I cut down on my tea drinking years ago.

Onwards then - Pedro where are you?

Jamrox said:

Zand , AF as you know can be very serious and changes the ball game completely.
Please do not stop any medication, set forth on an exercise programme or any radical until you have seen your gp.
My advice is that you go on Monday , talk to him/her and tell them what you are planning. You will get monitored properly.
Stopping and changing things because of natural remedies is unwise and I urge you to reconsider. Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

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Sorry, I didn't mean to worry you. I have almost always spoken to my GP/consultant before stopping any medication, I researched first to work out which was doing me least good/most harm and then asked if it was OK to stop it now and gave my reasons. I say almost always, just once I stopped taking one blood pressure tablet (it was the water tablet) because my blood pressure was going too low and I was feeling faint often and my skin was very dry. I couldn't get an appointment to see the GP that I usually saw and was seeing my heart consultant in a month anyway, The only other blood pressure tablet I was taking was a beta blocker, and I figured I still needed this for my heart. When I saw my consultant I told him that I wasn't taking it anymore and he said that was good and my GP was right to tell me to stop it (!). My blood pressure was normal then and the consultant agreed to let me have the ablation treatment for my heart. I haven't ever stopped or changed anything because of natural remedies, I always use both medication and natural remedies together. I do use natural remedies to correct things before they get too far now. The thing is though HCPs don't tell you that your body is craving nutrition, they just dole out the drugs and operate. If only they had bothered checking the contraindications of the drugs they were prescribing me! If only I had known that magnesium was essential for muscles, especially the heart I would not have needed to go to hospital for 4 lots of anaesthetic. Before the ablation treatment, I had gone to have my heart shocked back into rhythm on 3 separate occasions. The first time didn't work, and I had burns on my chest where they put the pads on, I also bit right through my tongue when they gave me 3 'good shocks'. The second time I was put on a dangerous drug,

Common side effects of amiodarone oral:
Toxic Effect on Brain or Spinal Cord FunctionSevere
Abnormally Low Blood PressureSevere
Interstitial PneumonitisSevere
Lung FibrosisSevere
Inflammation of the Alveoli of the LungsSevere
Sun-Sensitive SkinSevere
Abnormal Liver Function TestsSevere
Incomplete or Infrequent Bowel MovementsLess Severe
Low EnergyLess Severe
Involuntary QuiveringLess Severe
UncoordinatedLess Severe
Loss of AppetiteLess Severe
Feel Like Throwing UpLess Severe
Throwing UpLess Severe

One of the less common side effects on the leaflet for amiodarone is listed simply as 'death'

This time worked and my heart was in normal rhythm for 18 months. It went out of rhythm again straight after I took fluconazole for thrush, though again HCP's didn't see any connection. I was back on amiodarone again and had another set of 3 shocks which didn't work. My consultant told me nothing else could be done and I would have to live with being breathless and unable to bend to tie up my laces for life. Thankfully my GP had already told me that another hospital an hour a way did ablation treatment and had suggested I ask my hospital to refer me there. They did and now I have a life again.

So I had four short stays in hospital, four procedures requiring a general anaesthetic because of prescribed drugs and a nutritional deficiency. In all of those 4 stays in hospital, every single one of the women in the beds near to me were on the same two drugs which I felt had caused my atrial fibrillation, I know because I asked them. My magnesium supplement is expensive, £20 a tub, but it is what my body actually needs and it took a naturopath to tell me. It isn't even a treatment as such, it's simply nutrition. But what a waste of NHS money to have to give me all that treatment for want of some decent advice and a tub of magnesium. It's scandalous and it's the reason why I have taken my own health into my own hands.

I no longer need to see a heart consultant, but at my last visit I asked him about exercise in the future and he said walking/jogging/running was fine. Yes, if I ever get fit enough to try the extreme stuff I will get it checked out first, I promise. I will not give up my remaining blood pressure tablet without my doctor's consent, but that doesn't stop me working on getting fitter so that I won't need it eventually. I am not against drugs altogether, in fact I am taking one which most people would steer clear of because of its bad reputation as being 'rat poison' - warfarin. My consultant said he would like me to stay on it until November 2013 and then it was up to me, I could stop taking it if I wished. I have chosen to remain on it because I messed up a minor vein giving myself phlebitis when I was sitting too much when I was in pain with my broken sternum. Warfarin is OK, it's an old drug so has been well tried and tested on many patients like me so I am comfortable taking it for life to reduce the chance of clotting.

My heart has been in normal rhythm for 18 months now so I am not in AF any longer, I will do everything I can to keep it that way.

Thanks for caring Jamrox

Yesterday was a fantastic day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Songs playing in my head on my morning walk this morning were One day like this - Elbow and London Calling - The Clash

OK, the planned walk. A few weeks back hubby said he'd like us to go to the Emirates stadium to watch the FA Cup final on the big screen. I wasn't that keen really, but he said we could walk first - from Kings Cross. Nope, not far enough, I negotiated upwards to walking from Piccadilly which I was happy with. However next day our elder son, always a great motivator, visited and I told him the plan and he said "That's only about 5 miles, you could do something really amazing and walk from Chelsea to Arsenal, you've walked from Chelsea to Piccadilly before so you know what those extra 3 miles will be like. Oh come on, just how much did you hate those 'little horse' comments from Mourinho ....walk from Chelsea to Arsenal wearing a yellow ribbon on the day we win the FA Cup, that would be awesome." And it was. (But I didn't bother with the yellow ribbon)

So we got off the tube at Earl's Court, walked through Brompton Cemetery to Stamford Bridge. Hubby was a bit tense (well, he is a gooner)I was a bit grumpy because we had a couple of slight hiccups on the way. My younger son had a ticket for Wembley and we dropped him off at the station (he was going with friends) before we started our journey by car. A very excited young man showed his ticket to his Dad and then forgot where he had put it (takes after me, that one). Eventually it was found (inside his closed laptop) and we left. I spent a lot of time helping look for the ticket and hubby asked me if I had my Oyster card, I told him where it was and he got it for me. This was a bad idea, I should have insisted I got it for myself but I was otherwise engaged. We had driven about 7 miles when I remembered I didn't have my Arsenal membership card with me; I had left it on top of the Oyster card so that anyone who found the Oystercard would also find the membership card. Well I thought it was a fool proof system - apparently not. So we went back for it, no problem really we had plenty of time, just a bit annoying.

I was also a bit grumpy because of a few small incidents while we were walking to Stamford Bridge. The first one was when a woman whispered too loudly to her husband 'let's just get past these people, I don't want to be stuck behind her' Yep, I'm very fat but that doesn't mean I'm slow. She did not get past me I made sure of it. This has been a favourite pastime of mine for years, speed up so they don't have a hope of getting past me. Husband usually just smiles and speeds up too. After a Muse concert at Wembley, the same thing happened, and I declared I was going to always wear a jumper (see how prophetic that was!) when I was out and next time someone did that I would speed up, take off my jumper revealing a T-shirt saying 'I may be fat but I'm in front of you' . Never quite got around to it. Incident number 2 was when we were approached by a tourist asking the way to Arsenal because the Piccadilly line was closed. (It wasn't). Hubby told him he could walk with us, but he declined and looked at me and said it would take me till tomorrow to get there. This was a good thing to say to me because there was no way I was going to fail now. Incident no 3 was when hubby said did I want a photo of myself next to a photo of a Chelsea player to send to our sons to prove I was there. Then he said what about Frank Lampard. OMG FRANK LAMPARD???!!!! Just how fat and slow does he think I am???? I chose Ashley Cole, - seemed appropriate for the occasion.

I was so focussed on the walking that I had forgotten about food and water. We went to M&S and got lunch which we ate at Green Park. I was not too happy, I just wanted to do the walk as quickly as possible. Hubby soon got the hint that I was not waiting for the green man at crossings and ran across the road with me. Knightsbridge and Oxford Circus slowed us down - too many people. I needed a machete.( - you know, that episode of the Simpsons where Bart says to Lisa 'I am going to just stand here swinging my arms and if you get in the way.....') All went well until the hill after Kings Cross. A couple of weeks ago I found that I could no longer give my heart a workout by walking quickly on the flat. But now I'm a bit breathless again. I have a slight cough, so it's probably asthma. I usually get it mildly at this time of year. I needed to stop and check that my pulse was regular several times on that hill, I knew I was struggling but could push on through, but I didn't want to jeopardise my future health by being foolish now. Also having had so much chiropractic treatment only days before I found it difficult to maintain correct posture on the hill, my legs and lower and middle back were fine. The problem was my upper spine from my sternum up to the top of my neck. I had to keep stopping to do neck retraction exercises because I had a few muscle spasms which made me yelp, I also had to massage the tiny muscles near where the bones broke in November. So that hill really slowed me down and messed up the time. I would have liked to have done it more quickly.

We have measured the distance this morning and from Earls Court to Arsenal on the route we took was 9.47 miles. Total time was 3 hours 40 minutes including the stop for lunch (maybe 30 minutes). After the match we walked past Highbury and Islington tube station (another mile) to meet our elder son and his girlfriend who had watched the game in a pub there. We had a drink with them and the atmosphere was brilliant.

How long is it since Arsenal won a trophy? 16.5 hours.

Oh I forgot to say, I did find Pedro. Yesterday I did 31182 steps