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HCM-ers: Introduce yourself or just say hi
Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) | Last Active: Aug 26 9:56am | Replies (870)Comment receiving replies
Does anyone with HCM and AFIB have experience taking Amiodarone? -- to reduce the chances of AFIB returning -- and what dosage(s)?
Did you have swelling in your feet and/or lower legs that was never eliminated by adjusting salt intake, water intake, and lasix (furosemide)? Because -- one of the side-effects listed for Amiodarone is swelling of the feet and/or lower legs.
If someone has experienced this, did you then reduce or eliminate the Amiodarone?
If so:
1. Did the swelling of the feet and/or lower legs dissipate or be eliminated?
2. Did you have another instance of AFIB? -- and was it debilitating? or just transient?
Replies to "Does anyone with HCM and AFIB have experience taking Amiodarone? -- to reduce the chances of..."
Amiodarone Update from @dave023
- Yesterday, I sat in on my Mom's appointment with her cardiologist and I asked if the Amiodarone could be causing the swelling in her feet and lower legs (because it's one of the listed side-effects)
- the doctor said "No". She has had a lot of experience with treating her patients with this drug, and she has never know it to cause this type of swelling.
So, I guess I ended up finding the answer to my own question. But, hopefully it will be useful info for other people in this forum
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Hello again @dave023 ,
I admire your dedication to finding out how to help your mother. Here on Mayo Connect, we are not doctors (although some members actually are doctors) but for the most part we are patients or caretakers of patients and we have to be careful about dispensing medical advice. We can share our stories about what we take and what has worked or didn't work and what we did with what we take and how it made us feel. Whew! That was a mouthful!
Anyway, I had two things come to mind reading your post along with some of your other posts:
Your mother has had HCM for all her life. It's most likely genetic. Have you been checked?
Second, I think you need to be careful when you are adjusting your mom's medications. They are prescribed the way they are for reasons, and if she is having issues with any of them you need to let the doctor know right away. I get how people can "fall through the cracks" in today's healthcare system, and mistakes can be made in dosage or drugs prescribed that interact with other drugs when more than one physician is involved. Just be careful making changes based on your own knowledge.
Third (I just thought of this!) before I had my open heart surgery (septal myectomy) I was on all sorts of beta blockers and calcium channel blockers. I did not like them and they did not like me. I had been misdiagnosed for several years and my feet were swelling all the time. I was exhausted when I woke up each day. I could do nothing without my heart racing in the fast last. The aftermath of eating a large meal was not a good thing. The list goes on. It turns out my heart was actually failing. Not like congestive heart failure, but similar. Your mom sounds like she has some of those symptoms. My heart failure was discovered at the Mayo Clinic, after my third opinion. They did two surprisingly simple tests nobody thought to do before; a chest x-ray, which showed an enlarged heart and a lab test (BNP) that showed failure.
Afib, untreated can lead to heart distress because it's working so hard. HCM doesn't help either. I am sharing this with you to maybe shed some light on the feet swelling and perhaps it's not the medication.
You sound like you have gathered a lot of information for her next visit, when does she see her cardiologist again?