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How did you wean off Metoprolol?
Heart Rhythm Conditions | Last Active: Sep 19 7:56am | Replies (551)Comment receiving replies
I have had a really tough time trying to find a blood pressure pill without side effects. First I developed a cough from Lisinopril, then he put me on Losartan then Olmesartan, etc. After two years on those, my joints were in excruciating pain. My sister said to look at side effects when I told her the Orthopedics couldn't really find a cause. Sure enough, on not as common side effects was joint pain. He changes me to Toporol XL (same as generic Metoprolol), and within a month, all the joint pain is gone. After being on Toporol for a couple of months, I start getting this really bad pain in my side. They did CT scans and there is no reason I should have this pain. Then I look up side effects and there it is, on rare side effects or less common was "side pain". I'm just beside myself! So I go back to the Doctor and he has now changed me to a Thiazide diuretic (Maxzide) while weaning me off Toporol, but my blood pressure is now really high. Although I did sometimes have heart fluttering at rest (usually middle of the night), the Toporol did help with that. After reading this group, I wish I had never been on the Toporol because I have since found that going off can cause your BP to spike higher than before. What used to be 135/85 HBP with no medication is now 150/100 on the diuretic. He is now adding a calcium blocker and I'm worried that has it's own set of problems. I'm only 58 and I'm just wondering if any of you had any of these same problems with the pain in the side. Or has anyone been on the calcium blockers and any problems I should be aware of. I think I'm just overly sensitive to medication and am working on my weight (220) so maybe one day I won't have this problem.
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Although one cannot rule-out that these pains and side effects weren't caused by medications, people that take Placebos, i.e. Sugar Pills that the patient think is medication, causes some patients to experience side effect when, in fact, there is nothing in the Placebo to cause it. I'm taking a ton of medication, seizures, Afib, Cholesterol, Blood Pressure (I lost weight, the pressure is down, but the diuretic effect reduces the volume of retained fluids, so I elected, with the Doctor's approval, to remain on it), etc. If I read the side effects, I'm sure I could correlate something I experience to the medication. But it doesn't mean it's actually from the medication.
Placebo Contrasted Side Effects is a good way to determine the side effects of a drug, yet I cannot find a handy example. But when a Drug compared to Placebo trials are done, it's interesting the things that people taking the Placebo report. Say 12% of the Drug Group experiences knee pain and 10% of the Placebo Group does as well. It's not likely that 12% of the eventual patients to receive Metoprolol will experience knee pain, maybe 2%, but even that is generalization since the Placebo Group didn't receive anything to cause it, just that 10% of the Placebo Group noted knee pain.
I'd always look for a wider variance in Drug to Placebo Groups to start to seriously believe that the effects may actually be caused by the Drug. If the Drug Group reported something at 15%, and the Placebo Group reported it at 7%, there's a good chance the Drug is causing the effect. Periodically, sometimes the Drug Group reports a lower percentage of Side Effects than the Placebo Group.
And there are Pre-Market and Post-Market Studies. Once released, Side Effects are reported, and sometimes, they are ludicrously silly, something that most people cannot possibly see a correlation between the Medication and the Effect, but they are, nevertheless, recorded as Side Effects.
At some point, many of us need to decide if the Side Effect or higher blood pressure, racing heart, tension, etc., is worse. Sometimes clearly the Side Effect must go, other times, one learns to live with it. In all cases, talk to your Doctor and consult your Pharmacist, sometimes the Pharmacist knows much more than the Doctor on the Medication.