AF and GBS

Hello, I wanted to chime in that there are “case reports” of atrial fibrillation and Guillain Barre syndrome meaning that if you search for the combination (by a medical search engine called PubMed or a public search engine like Google), you see reports of both together. One of the Google searches linked to a textbook of cardiology that stated that atrial fibrillation can occur in Guillain Barre syndrome and also listed almost every other kind of alteration in heart rhythm. Most of the changes are in rate not transfer of the electrical impulse through the heart, though, meaning that the heart rate is slow or rapid but regular. GBS can affect any type of nerve–motor (causing weakness), sensory (causing numbness or pain), or autonomic (that regulated the “vital” functions of the body such as heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature to extremities). There can also be alteration in the stability of these because of the nerve damage in GBS so that people can have wide fluctuations in these instead of the remarkable consistency usually present. This probaly means that if your brain says to the heart, I need a faster heart rate, instead of a slightl faster one you get a really fast one because the nerve communication and feedback is altered. How one adjusts and compensates using nerve conduction no longer works quite right. It sounds like you had a lot of “autonomic” effects at onset of the Guillain Barre and still have quite a bit. It is not clear if these resolve or if people relearn how to regulate in the face of an altered nerve system, but either way, they get a lot better. The temperature sensativity is likely one of the effects of this since the autonomic nerves regulate blood flow and this is used to keep temperature steady. In reading here, most people with GBS have trouble with feeling too hot in warm weather, but others of us seem to also have trouble keeping a feeling of being warm enough in cold weather.

WithHope for cure of these diseases and peace in living through them.