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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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I have shortness of breath too now more noticeable. I don't want to sleep at night because when I do I have nightmares...
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1 ReactionI will talk to him, I've been having a thyroid problem, along with a heart problem & I don't understand any of these things. I just know it all scares me. At night my readings drop so low so I don't take it at night. It's all so confusing to me.
I cut back each day until the doctor said stop it had no problems coming off of it.
@zany, I urge you to talk to your doctor about phasing out your dosage rather than stopping it abruptly, which may be hazardous.
I quit taking coreg about a month ago I feel like myself again I think it would have killed me if I had not. I could not hardly walk from room to room with out shortness of breath. Now I can do anything and not have any problems. It took me a year to convince my doctor that was what it was. I am not on any thing now. I go back to my doctor in May I guess we will go from there. But my blood pressure has been great.
After reading all these post I am sorry I ever took it . I have only been on it about two weeks and I don't think I'll take another dose of the medication...
i would very much like to get off of carvedilol 6.25
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.
@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.
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?