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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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Wondering how your doing?
how long have you been going through withdrawals? My doctor didnt think that I would still be having issues after 4 weeks, but I am. And I didnt have the adrenal surges that wake me every morning, until I stopped carvedilol.
Thank You tyt! This makes a lot of sense to me!
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1 ReactionYes, Coreg sure has side effects when withdrawing from it! I feel like I went thru hell for weeks! I guess it was only 3 weeks until the internal shaking stopped! I felt awful! My neck felt like I was being strangled! My upper arms/shoulder/neck hurt! My legs were weak..I was weak! My hands are still trembling! I took Xanax before when I was getting a repressed memory. Oh my! That is a MAJOR TRANQUILIZER! I stopped that as soon as I could and advise others to stay away from it! Julie, I am so sorry you have to go threw this! Maybe after its all out of our systems..we will feel great! I hope so!
I've been on it about a yr and it caused me issues with sugar blurry vision fatigue so bad i didn't wanna shower some days. Then he just kept throwing more pills to me telling me im now diabetic and need pills for that so i stopped going and am weaning off fast but i feel like total hell. I'm done work drs and tons of meds btw my sugar is back to normal. I too wondeted how long to get it out of my system. Id rather take my chances without it. I hate taking meds they always seem to have side effects that they want to treat with more meds. For me anyways its been like this. They also had me taking xanax for bed they i know cause swelling cause when i stopped taking it went away in case anyone's on benzos and having that issue. Good luck to all and any help on this coreg withdrawal would be great
Do you also have heart failure? My comment was intended to convey that Coreg was probably not a first line treatment for hypertension unless you also had systolic heart failure. Many people have hypertension but do not also have heart failure. If that was the case,
Coreg would likely not be the first drug of choice. I said nothing about side effects.
This comment from @cynaburst is from five years ago. Had I seen it then, I'd have advised everybody that Coreg for hypertsion is not at all "a bit strange." I'm hypertensive, and my medical team has had me on Coreg for several years, with little if any of the side-effects mentioned in this discussion. Others have reported side-effects (or suspected side-effects that might not be that, but something else at work). In any case, Coreg is fine for some of us, and for those who think it is a problem for them, it's a matter for settlement with their medical team, not me or anybody else on Mayo Connect. One other thing that repeatedly comes up in Coreg discussions is FDA and medical care providers' advice to avoid abrupt termination of Coreg doses, since getting off the drug needs to be done in phases and in partnership with the patient's personal physician
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3 ReactionsFrom the research Ive done, the beta blocker is a cortisol blocker, so when you stop them the body has to adjust to the adrenaline pouring into the body. I just hope it all stops soon...driving me crazy.
Is that what it is? Makes sense! Why am I getting them? Stopped finally for now, but I am shaking a lot for me.
did you have morning adrenaline surges upon waking?