Doctors & patients are saying about 'A-Fib.com'...


"A-Fib.com is a great web site for patients, that is unequaled by anything else out there."

Dr. Douglas L. Packer, MD, FHRS, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN

"Jill and I put you and your work in our prayers every night. What you do to help people through this [A-Fib] process is really incredible."

Jill and Steve Douglas, East Troy, WI 

“I really appreciate all the information on your website as it allows me to be a better informed patient and to know what questions to ask my EP. 

Faye Spencer, Boise, ID, April 2017

“I think your site has helped a lot of patients.”

Dr. Hugh G. Calkins, MD  Johns Hopkins,
Baltimore, MD


Doctors & patients are saying about 'Beat Your A-Fib'...


"If I had [your book] 10 years ago, it would have saved me 8 years of hell.”

Roy Salmon, Patient, A-Fib Free,
Adelaide, Australia

"This book is incredibly complete and easy-to-understand for anybody. I certainly recommend it for patients who want to know more about atrial fibrillation than what they will learn from doctors...."

Pierre Jaïs, M.D. Professor of Cardiology, Haut-Lévêque Hospital, Bordeaux, France

"Dear Steve, I saw a patient this morning with your book [in hand] and highlights throughout. She loves it and finds it very useful to help her in dealing with atrial fibrillation."

Dr. Wilber Su,
Cavanaugh Heart Center, 
Phoenix, AZ

"...masterful. You managed to combine an encyclopedic compilation of information with the simplicity of presentation that enhances the delivery of the information to the reader. This is not an easy thing to do, but you have been very, very successful at it."

Ira David Levin, heart patient, 
Rome, Italy

"Within the pages of Beat Your A-Fib, Dr. Steve Ryan, PhD, provides a comprehensive guide for persons seeking to find a cure for their Atrial Fibrillation."

Walter Kerwin, MD, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA


The Costs and Consequences of Living with Atrial Fibrillation

Our mission at A-Fib.com is, in part, “to empower patients to find their A-Fib cure or best outcome.” We often advise:

Don’t listen to doctors who want to just control your symptoms with drugs. Leaving patients in A-Fib overworks the heart, leads to fibrosis and increases the risk of stroke. The abnormal rhythm in your atria causes electrical changes and enlarges your atria (called remodeling) making it work harder and harder over time. Seek your Cure.

A Few CDC Facts About A-Fib

I was recently reminded of the other costs of living with Atrial Fibrillation when I re-read the  A-Fib Fact sheet from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In part it reads: “More than 750,000 hospitalizations [in the U.S.] occur each year because of Atrial Fibrillation (A-Fib). The death rate from A-Fib as the primary or a contributing cause of death has been rising for more than two decades.”

The A-Fib stat that jumped out at me was:

“Medical costs [in the U.S.] for people who have A-Fib are about $8,705 higher per year than for people who do not have A-Fib.”

How disconcerting! A-Fib costs you in many ways. Beyond the physical, mental and emotional toll, staying in A-Fib with medication is costly to your wallet. Besides the annual costs of your medications, the odds of your being hospitalized increases. Just in terms of dollars and cents, A-Fib on average costs you an additional $8,700 a year.

To learn more, read my editorial, Leaving the Patient in A-Fib—No! No! No!

How Much Will You Pay to Stay in A-Fib?

Remember: ‘A-Fib begets A-Fib.’ The longer you have A-Fib, the greater the risk of your A-Fib episodes becoming more frequent and longer, often leading to continuous (Chronic) A-Fib. (However, some people never progress to more serious A-Fib stages.)

When you add up all the costs (physical, emotional and monetary) of living in A-Fib, doesn’t it make sense to ‘Seek you Cure’?

Don’t let your doctor leave you in A-Fib. Educate yourself. Learn all your treatment options.

Resources for this Article

• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Weighted national estimates. HCUP National Inpatient Sample [online]. 2012. [cited 2015 Feb 9]. Available from: http://hcupnet.ahrq.gov/HCUPnet.jsp.

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About multiple cause of death 1999–2011. CDC WONDER Online Database. 2014. [cited 2014 Oct 2]. Available from: http://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd-icd10.html.

• January CT, et al. 2014 AHA/ACC/HRS guideline for the management of patients with atrial fibrillation. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 2014;64(21):2246–80.

• Mozaffarian D, et al. Heart disease and stroke statistics—2015 update: a report from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2015;131:e29–e322

• Atrial Fibrillation Fact Sheet. Last reviewed August 2017. National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fs_atrial_fibrillation.htm

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