side effect question

Have been taking Flecanide for several years, 100 mg 2/day. Have had a momentary dizzy spell ~1 sec duration occasionally. Has anyone had this with this medication?
Also have lingering lightheadedness. Now my doctor admits that's quite possible from the Flec. I expect that's the price of admission.
An inner ear doc has proposed a test but wnats me to cut Flecanide for 1 month first to see if the dizzy spell stops. Just wondering if anyone had this.

I've had many dizzy spells myself, which is why I'm very reluctant to try flec. You may want to use search past forums and read the thread "Unbelieveable Story".

John - I am on an even higher dose of Flec...150 mgs twice/day - and have not had any problem with dizzy spells. I haven't heard anyone on here bring that up as a problem, but we are all individuals. I too was afraid to start taking Flec, but am SO thankful I did - it has made a huge impact on my quality of life!

~ Barb

Thanks, I'll read that story. And Barb, I believe Flec has been pretty good. The dizziness might be something else. I've refined my approach since finding this site as well. Thanks for that.

Dizziness is a common side effect of flec. It generally does go away after awhile, but it didn't for me. Hated that stuff.

John - one of the reasons I wanted to get off flecainide was both the lightheadedness and vision distortion. When I was able to cut back on the dosing, I had a slight improvement and when I was totally off the drug after ablation, everything normalized. Jackie

Hey Jackie - would you recommend lowering the dosage of Flec. if things seem to be going pretty well? I don't like that I'm on a high dose, and I do wonder if things would still be good if I maybe lowered at least one of my doses (morning or night). They did have to increase my dosage over the first few months as my afib was still kicking up, although less frequently. I guess I could try it, but maybe check with the EP first?

Have been taking Flec for almost 3 years now...and overall, it's been a life changer for me.

I tend to be a vagal afibber...not sure if that matters.

Thanks ~ Barb

Barb - I've posted my experience with flecainide numerous times... I was taking 300 mg daily - divided doses - AF worsened to more frequent and longer duration until I was in AF daily or everyother day... maybe 4 hours inbetween rounds. I consulted with Dr. Natale and was given a date for ablation 6 months out. Since I never wanted to submit to the procedure, I did heroics to try to reverse the afib on my own... tried accupuncture, herbals, and increased the magnesium and potassium more than I had taken previously... then I had sessions with my holistic chiropractor where he worked on my stomach/diaphragm area. Impressive results... I went down to zero afib. I then started shaving the flecainide pills down so I could gradually reduce the dosing to zero. I made it to zero but had a nasty rebound so went back on 50 mg a day and that held me in NSR until the ablation about 2.5 months later.

If you are afib free, I'd not want to rock the boat by cutting back... it's just that for me, it became ineffective or actually it seemed to be pro-arrhythmic.
If you decide to lower your dosing, I'd do it very, very gradually just as I did by shaving off minute portions of the tablet. Maybe the daytime dose if all your events seem to be at night.

I was also vagal...mostly. During the last years, I could get events at random times but still mostly vagal and evenging or wee hours of the night.

Jackie

I took 50 mg Flecainide twice a day for two years until it didn't work anymore. I was dizzy, lightheaded, and had trouble with vision throughout. I drove through stop signs and red lights.

I have had some worsening of my migraine headaches and some accompanying dizziness, which is brief, about 1 to 3 seconds.

I was on Sotalol 80mg x 2 for two years. Made me very tired. Experienced great deal of exercise intolerance. EP put me on Flec. Vision problems, fatigue and breathlessness. I'm also on 25 mg. of Cozaar and EP prescribed 100 mg of metropolol. Couldn't do 100 mgs of metropolol without feeling verrrrrry depressed. Cut that in half. Still not feeling very cheerful. Want to go back on Sotalol. It seems the lesser of the two poisons.

Thanks, Jackie. I have read your story on Flec., before, but didn't know the details of how you cut back and why. It sounds like your afib became very frequent while on the Flec, whereas that's the reason I started taking it. . Maybe I'll hold on the idea of cutting back for now, as I don't want to rock the boat, as you say.

What kind of vision problems have some of you had/been having? I do feel a bit more tired than I'd like from late morning into mid afternoon...am thinking it's a side effect of taking the Flec mid morning...

~ Barb

Going to an inner ear guy. He thought I had migraine with a dizzy symptom. Apparently there are migraines with dizzy as only symptom.

I hear vision problems mentioned several times. This has been an outstanding aspect over three years. It's like, for me, the eyes are slower. Times when they are quite tired. Reading is more difficult, like they need a jump start to get going. And peripheral vision is not what it was. This could be other than medication, hard to know.
That's why I was asked to get off Flec for 1 month to see what happens -though he confided he didn't think that was the problem. I am kind of disappointed that I tried - after 2 incidents back to back and missing most of a day of work I abondoned the effort.
Many times with a client sitting in front of me or across table and my moving laterally getting documents or such I get a dizzy moment. He speculated that getting dizzy with side to side head movements the eyes were not in sync with the visiual field on in some way.

For fatigue or a lingering sense of saddness, etc I have taken SAMe which helps significantly.

Barb,
Cut back a little but divide the doses to thrice daily 100 75 100 to start
I'm doing 50 50 50 along with 25mg Tropol.
Are you using a beta blocker? I forget!