Lopressor for rate control

My cardiologist prescribed 12.5 mg of Lopressor to slow my heart rate down...……(120-150 BPM when in afib which is occurring

every other night for a few hours, then back in NSR by morning). Is this approach worthwhile to try first before considering an

ablation? Was diagnosed over 2 years ago.

Thanks in advance.

Lopressor is a brand name of metoprolol, which is a cheap, generic drug. So I hope your cardiologist didn't really write the prescription for Lopressor when they could have just written it for dirt cheap metoprolol. If they did, ask the pharmacy to substitute.

But yes, you need a rate control drug if you're experiencing rates of 120+. But all metoprolol will do is slow the rate. It won't prevent or stop your episodes. Slowing the rate is important because it prevents heart damage, but understand that it's not going to prevent the afib. It's no cure. The only things that will actually prevent your afib are antiarrhythmic drugs or ablation.

You need to take a rate control drug like metoprolol while you're deciding what to do long term, so I would go ahead and take it if I were you.

12.5 mg is also a very low dose. You must be cutting the 25mg pills in half to achieve that dose. I believe 25mg is the smallest pill for metoprolol. Like Carey said, don't pay for a brand name even if it does come in 12.5mg pills. It's perfectly fine to get generic 25mg metoprolol and just cut them as long as they're not the extended release form. You want metoprolol tartrate. That's the fast release pill and can be cut. The metoprolol succinate is the extended release form and shouldn't be cut.