Flecainide and Metoprolol

Hello

Ever since I had my dosage increased (tripled) from 50mgx2 Flec and 25mgx1 Met to 150x2 Flec and 75x1 Met in a three week period I have been experiencing a good deal of anxiety. I first attributed it to finding out my options were limited to ablation as my best alternative (it came as a shock). Since I have heard many others who experience anxiety on these drugs. Do I have better alternatives. I reported one panic attack to my EP and I got a call from the monitoring service asking me if I passed out during another but since just difficulty with waking up at 4-6 am and struggling going back to sleep

Also, I was told on the board that Natale would remove me from meds prior to ablation. I have read where there can be withdrawal problems with these drugs. Is that a problem?

Have you found that the higher doses of flecainide and metoprolol are helping you? Flecainide is a tricky drug and I had severe side effects at 150 mg twice a day but most are OK with that dose. You can stop Flecainide without tapering, through metoprolol, being a beta blocker, may need a bit of tapering…or not. Dr. Natale’s NP will give you explicit instructions.

Quote
Daisy
Have you found that the higher doses of flecainide and metoprolol are helping you? Flecainide is a tricky drug and I had severe side effects at 150 mg twice a day but most are OK with that dose. You can stop Flecainide without tapering, through metoprolol, being a beta blocker, may need a bit of tapering…or not. Dr. Natale’s NP will give you explicit instructions.

Daisy- do you weigh less than 154 pounds? If so 150mg/BID=300mg in a 24 hour is too high a dose. If you weigh less than 154# then 200mg in a 24 hour period is recommended. Perhaps that’s why you are getting side effects from Flecainide.

I've never heard of anyone experiencing anxiety from flecainide and metoprolol. People experience anxiety about the idea of taking the drugs. They're afraid of them, so that increases their anxiety, but the drugs don't. In fact, metoprolol is almost an anti-anxiety med because it counteracts adrenaline.

People stop flecainide without tapering all the time. I've done so several times. It does not need tapering and there are no withdrawal problems.

If you've been taking metoprolol a long time, like as in years, that can require tapering only because your body will be conditioned to produce more adrenaline than normal so when you stop the metoprolol you'll be very amped up. But if you've only been taking it for months, no problem stopping it without tapering. People do that all the time, and so have I multiple times.

Who knows with all the meds I take. I do know that anxiety is listed as a common side effect of Flecainide and my anxiety (waking up at 4am) started when dosage escalated. Although, it could be my Ozempic which also lists anxiety as a side effect ( but I have been taking that for 2 years without side effects.

I am hoping for successful ablation and getting rid of heart drugs. Then focus o a natural replacement for my diabetic drugs. MaybeI can get the pharmeceutical companies to give up their multibillion dollar diabetic market and tell us the secret cure.

Anxiety is listed as a common side effect of almost every drug there is.

I have noticed a transient reaction several times to taking a larger daily dose of Flecainide, that went away after 4-5 days. It caused aggressive over-reactions to issues, kind of like roid-rage.