Ameoderane

AMeoderone after getting a pacemaker?

by AgentX86 - 2018-05-20 20:05:24

What is your EP's reasoning for keeping you on ameoderone after getting a pacemaker?  That makes no sense to me.  Ameoderone is really nasty stuff.  So nasty my EP and cardiologist wouldn't give it to me, except for short periods (less than six months at a time).  Even then, the last time I had it, it screwed up my thyroid.  Fortunately, it's recovering.  My EP said that if I were fifteen years older (you're a year younger than I), he would have risked amioderone longer (that was before I got the pacemaker).

Amiodarone afterPM...

by donr - 2018-05-21 09:04:25

...not that unusual if you have te wrong kind of arrhythmia. 

Wrong kind is one that a PM cannot correct - like excessive, wild, randomly occurring PVC's or PAC's. 

It's a last resort med -hopefully.  Too many nasty side effects that are irreversable.

I was having the PVC's roughly every other or every third beat - felt like trash.  Metoprolol did nothing to control them, nor did Flecainide, the anti-arryhtmic med I was on.  I was on Flecainide for over ten yrs & it it worked just fine.  Then it stopped.   Hazards of increasing dosage were too great  for causing more arrhythms than it woud stop, once they got going.   Choices were Sotalol or Amiodarone.  I was transitioning between EP's 500 miles apart.  Each supported a different med - but both said it was my choice.  I was in the city of the Sotalol supporter when I had a near heart attack, so sotalol it was. For me it has worked fine.  Very few arrythmias since.  With Flecainide, it was at best an average of 3 PVC's every two minutes - then it failed.  With Sotalol I can go 2-3 min without any PVC's.  I'm pushing 82 - don't need that final step to Amiodarone - yet.

Donr

Put on amiodarone after second shock...

by BOBTHOM - 2018-06-21 00:43:31

They started me on amiodarone after the second shock, initial dose of 800mg/day until I couldn't tolerate it, then reduced down and now at 100mg/day.  It's really to try and prevent the arythimias before the ICD has to fire and prevent going into an electric shock storm.  Each shock causes slight damage to the heart muscle so the fewer the shocks the better off you are.  The amiodarone, the lower the dose the better off you are as long as it's effective.  In my case, only 58, but severe heart damage and EF of 15%, not qualified for transplant, not even sure I could get an LVAD, so not many choices!

Amiodorone

by Pippi36 - 2019-02-26 18:40:59

It's not a great drug to take  but if you have to take it, you take it. I have been taking it for 9 years now.  I was talking to an elderly man at the hospital last week about ICD,s - I have not met many people who have one - he has been taking it longer than I have. Hate the fact that I burn if in the sun but no other affects at the moment.