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Stopping Carvedilol (Coreg): When will the effects wear off?
Hi everyone,
I am glad to be a part of this community. Please foregive the long post. I was wondering if anyone has had a hard time while being on and going off Carvedilol (Coreg).
I am an active 45 year old mom of a young child. I have always tried to eat healthily and keep in shape (I do yoga, pilates and, run about 5k 2x per week). My BP has always been pretty good, but since my 40´s it has gone up a bit (heredity factors play a role). My BP and heart rate also "spike" when I get stressed or anxious, but for the most part are pretty level during normal times. I do have anxious moments, but I would not say anxiety has been a major life problem. At my last check (Feb 2016), and after wearing a 24 hour BP monitor, my cardiologist suggested I start Carvedilol 6.25 1x per day (quite a low dose) for the spikes and to keep the heart from getting too excited. I agreed that maybe it was a good idea and started over two months ago. Other than stimulating rapid bowel movements, I did not notice any side effects at first. I would say about three to four weeks into taking the Carvedilol, I began not sleeping well. I also noticed my heart pounding, like a bass drum, slowly and steadily, at times. Then the heart pounding began to wake me up at night (it turns out my HR was down in the high 40s at night). Some nights I even felt my chest muscles vibrate, as if a phone on silence mode was on top of my chest. I started to notice this more and more and then I would have a few normal nights, so I figured I would just talk about this at my next cardio check (booked out in June). I also noticed I was getting more and more anxious. I wasn't too sure why little things were beginning to bother me. I thought it was hormones, PMS, whatever, and started looking for someone like a therapist to talk to.
The previous week was bad. I woke up from a few nightmares and I started to panic in bed, just woken up from sleep. I had three nights of waking up to panic attacks and body shakes. The experiences made me very nervous. At this point I started looking into the side effects of Carvedilol and I was seeing not only chest pounding, but in rare cases reported effects of nightmares, visual disturbances, tremors, anxiety. I also know one does not simply stop a beta blocker, so we talked about tapering down. I tapered down for four days, and then I got in to see another cardiologist on Monday and he said just stop immediately. The effects are rare, but they have been noted. Going off this medication has been frightening. I feel weak and shaky all the time, and I get sporadic periods of pounding and muscle tremors in my legs, anxiety and fuzzy vision. I frequently get so cold I begin to shake. Yesterday I went back to the clinic for an EKG (normal) and some blood tests (including thyroid) and everything was normal. I am just assuming this is my body reacting and readapting itself after being on beta blockers. It has only been five days, but I am wondering if anyone out there has had similar experiences. How long did it take you to feel normal again? I ran a 5k just two weekends ago and yesterday I could hardly take a walk. Thanks for listening.
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Thank you for your concern. Thank God those nasty side effects are subsiding.
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1 ReactionI had some bad side effects on this medicine. One is always thinking that I am not alone when I awake. I even called out for my sister, I live alone. I now have a balancing problem when I walk. The clinical pharmacist said that Carvedilol would not cause this problem. Its been 26 days since I been on the medicine. I take 10mg. and i am beginning to feel like my old self.
I've never had BP issues. I was put on Metoprolol when I had my heart attack in 2005 as a protectant. I went off of it several years ago d/t major nightmares (that my doctor said she never heard of). This high BP issue as of lately, showed up with the "bladder infection" I ended up having. It was a very bad infection and took two rounds of antibiotics to resolve. It frustrates me that the doctor should have looked into more of why my BP was skyrocketing instead of just putting me on something. I am going to f/u with a cardiologist in April. If I do need to still be on something, hopefully she won't recommend the Carvedilol because I will not ever take that again. (I will suggest the lisinopril if she doesn't) Thank you for your feedback.
If you can @lola63, bring a nephrologist on board your medical team and let him/her take the lead. Your kidney and related hormones may be pivotal in your BP problem and lead to its real cause. My HMO has a standing protocol to refer BP cases to nephrology as soon as possible. That's how the unanticipated cause of my hypertension was found and fixed.
why is it you feel a nephrologist should be involved? What do you mean by "kidney and related hormones?"
Good questions @lola63. Here is a list of the most familiar "kidney and related hormones":
Angiotensin II -- causes vasoconstriction including kidney failure and heart failure.
Vasopressin -- ADH(anti-diuretic hormone) increases blood pressure by increasing blood volume, works at the kidneys.
Norepinephrine/Epinephrine (Adrenalin) -- released by the brain and adrenal glands on the kidney to spur cardaic output, raising BP.
Aldosterone -- increasing blood volume, works at the kidneys.
Renin -- enzyme secreted by the kidney and helps regulate blood pressure.
Cortisol -- from the cortex of adrenal glands, responds to stress and low glucose in the blood, also helps metabolize fat.
They are produced by kidneys, the brain, and adrenal glands (which are attached to the wall of the kidneys). They play a role in stimulating or regulating blood pressure by affecting kidney functions and circulatory functions involving the kidneys.
My HMO's standard protocol is to refer patients with high blood pressure to nephrology rather than cardiology as a means to resolve the most common and most severe symptoms causing hypertension. My first nephrologist helped manage my hypertension by leveling it, but he didn't find a cause (or didn't try to find one because he saw it as "essential hypertension" as many doctors do, thinking it's incurable and can be addressed by lifelong reliance on medications). My second-opinion nephrologist is driven to find fundamental causes whenever she can, and she did: I have an inherited kidney malfunction that fails to reclaim potassium from urine, and the resulting hypokalemia causes high blood pressure. Medication is still the answer, but not in the same way as many high BP patients. My cardiologist is dealing with my atrial fibrillation and consults with my nephrologist (whose father is also a cardiologist), but he has not treated my BP at all.
Let me know if I can help further.
Ok, let me rephrase my question to you. What in my post that I wrote is leading you to think this has to do with kidney issues?
@lola63, two days ago your posting said "the doctor should have looked into more of why my BP was skyrocketing instead of just putting me on something." That seemed sensible to me -- looking for a cause for skyrocketing BP was familiar to me, since that's the most noteworthy part of my experience. Note that my HMO and a lot of others refer BP problems to kidney specialists, for reasons I explained in my response. Trust me. Kidneys are often where BP problems are started. Ask your doctor.
I have had 2 heart attacks and a quadruple bypass and am on 50 mg of losartan and 6.25 mg of carvedilol 6.25 twice a day = 12.5.and additionally on a blood thinner and aspirin. These meds have effects you don`t even realize. I don't feel the same as I when I was only taking vitamins with no side effects so I am working with my doctor, pharmacist and a nutritionist to reduce my meds as much as possible by replacing it with vitamins with no side effects if that will be possible and doing the actions needed like changing my diet and exercising if possible. I also do a lot of research online to get questions answered I am not sure about, so I am informed so when I see the professionals, I have the ammunition to understand and control the conversation towards my goals. my first goal was to work with my doctor to get the meds that have the least side effects, getting opinions from my nutritionist and pharmacist. Doctors don't mind changing meds if you're replacing it with another especially if you list out the side effects you're experiencing, so I would go online see what the side effects are, then look at whether this was happening to me and then again go over it with my pharmacist and talk about options, then approach my doctor with a change.I was recently given an ok by my doctor to go off pravastatin for 8 weeks only if I could take natural vitamins and make appropriate changes that kept my cholesterol down but however if after that 8 weeks its is still high I have to return to the medication. I am using this system.
i would very much like to get off of carvedilol 6.25