Atrial fibrillation implications and medication

[Liveinthepresent]

Hi my MIL has been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation finally after a couple of years of severe palpitations that leave her exhausted.
She has been referred to a clinic - and told to expect to be put on Warfarin.
She is 77 and already has Meunieres disease with lots of symptoms affecting balance and hearing.
Can anyone with experience advise on what to expect and whether she would remain on warfarin, also will medication stop the attacks? Am seeing her this weekend and would like to be well informed as she may well panic.

TIA

A hopeful bump -anyone ?
Am I right in thinking this is quite common ?

As far as I understand.....
As the heart is fibrillating instead of pumping effectively one of the risks of AF is stroke due to risk of clots, warfarin keeps the blood thin to reduce the risk.

The medics will assess the risk related to falling etc and increased risk of bleeding against risk of a stroke.

Warfarin doesn't affect the rhythm or action of the heart so won't stop AF. There are other drugs which can help.

Hope that's useful but her Doctors should be able to talk her through it all.

Lots of people have AF and live a normal life

With AF at that age she should expect to be put on lifelong warfarin (although there are now new alternatives e.g. rivaroxaban that she could potentially be put on instead, but her doctor would talk about that if relevant). The scoring system they use to determine if someone needs warfarin is here if you're interested:

www.mdcalc.com/cha2ds2-vasc-score-for-atrial-fibrillation-stroke-risk/

As ChestyNut said, warfarin doesn't treat the AF itself, it just reduces the risk of stroke. AF increases the risk of strokes because the blood doesn't move as efficiently through the heart anymore so little clots can form and break off and go to the brain. The theory is that thinning the blood with warfarin stops the little clots forming.

It's really a very common condition and very manageable.

Hello if anyone is still reading thanks for these responses - I have only just logged back in after the hacker issues and a holiday where I had no wifi.

She seems ok - is on a beta blocker and feeling better already ( no more palpitations)
Seeing cardiologist in a month so hopefully she will know by then if the drugs are working out ok.

DM has AF. She was in warfarin and now rivaroxaban. She was getting lots of attacks which were exhausting her (complicated by some degree of heart failure as well) so has now had a pacemaker as well which I think should help the Drs get control of her heart when it's racing without controlling it so much it goes too slow which is what was happening.

She's had it for a few years but this year has been bad hence the pacemaker. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to the attacks - they can come on when she's just sitting watching TV. But hope the pacemaker will allow her to have more control of it.