Your rapid heartbeat is most likely a feature of your atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common abnormal heart rhythm disorder that affects 1.4 million people in the UK.

Your rapid heartbeat is most likely a feature of your atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common abnormal heart rhythm disorder that affects 1.4 million people in the UK

You explain in your longer letter that your cardiologist decided that a cardioversion — a controlled electric shock to the heart to try to restore a normal rhythm — might help.

It’s not uncommon for older patients (in your longer letter you say you are 84) to struggle to pass urine after surgery — this can be a side-effect of the anaesthetic drugs, or post-operative painkillers — and to need a temporary catheter.

It’s possible that at the time of your surgery you already had some symptoms, which might have included poor stream, hesitancy (difficulty in initiating urination) and nocturia (having to empty your bladder more than once at night), and the catheterisation you needed after the operation exacerbated the situation.

Write to Dr Scurr at Good Health, Daily Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email: drmartin@dailymail.co.uk — include contact details.