Amiodarone

Hi there!

I started Amiodarone at the end of February this year. Since May I have reduced the dosage bit by bit; this is the first week with just 600mg/week (taking it mondays, wednesdays, fridays). I saw my EP on Monday, and he said that if I'm doing well with such a low dosage there won't (most likely) be any bad side-effects. I was wondering what your experiences are. What was the lowest dosage you did well with, and were there really no side-effects?

The thing is that my EP always said that I should try Dronedarone (Multaq) as soon as it's available here in Germany which will probably be in January 2010. But now he thinks that I could as well stay on Amiodarone if I really only need 600mg/week. Of course, he says, it's my decision and he would still prescribe the Dronedarone for me, but nevertheless he got me thinking. It's like "never change a winning team"-thing, I'm doing so well at the moment.

Thanks a lot for any input!
Best wishes
Inga

3 Comments

Amiodarone works?

by ted - 2009-11-06 06:11:05

I was on Amiodarone for many years (100mg per day) and it worked real well controlling a-fib. However after I developed peripheral neuropathy (numbness in hands and feet), my doctor stopped the Amiodarone as this is a possible side effect. It took about four months to get out of my system, but since then some irregular hearbeats have returned. My doctors like Amiodarone and believe that it is not dangerous at low doses

Not for me!

by lenora - 2009-11-06 11:11:42

I was on Amiodarone for over a year before I got my first pacemaker 5 years ago. I had already been through every other antiarrhythmic known to man and still was passing out frequently from afib and aflutter, so the cardiologist tried it as a last resort. It only worked a short time like all the rest of them so he just kept upping the dose. Don't remember how much I was on . The first thing that happened was two fingers on my left hand went completely numb. That has never gone away. Then I developed a hideous tremor in my right hand that got so bad I couldn't write or feed myself (the food would fall off the fork from the shaking and I'd miss my mouth!). I couldn't put on eye makeup or lipstick anymore, much less start an IV or draw blood. Very distressing! A neurologist put me on Mysoline which is a seizure drug to try to control it but that didn't work. I got off of it when I got the first pacemaker but the tremor has never completely gone away. Amiodarone has a very very long halflife and can literally stay in your body for YEARS. It can be toxic to your thyroid and the maculae of your eyes. We had a patient that had been on it for years and he turned blue, not Blue Man blue but sort of corpsish like he'd been dug up (sorry, excuse me). I've said it before here that I think Amiodarone is a demon drug invented by the
devil himself. If you've got an hour read the list of possible side effects and you'll see why!

Amiodarone

by mrag - 2009-11-07 12:11:14

First big point, amiodarone does work. Second "bad" point, is it it a lousy drug to take with a lot of bad side effects for a number of people (NOTE: that is NOT everyone). Some people can tolerate (usually lower) doses for years and years, others can't.

Hopefully you fall in that category - if it works and you don't have problems, then why change?

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