Metoprolol

Hello @arce2723 and welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect. As you may know, Mayo Connect is a patient-to-patient support network, but we are not medical professionals and therefore cannot give medical advice. If you are concerned about your blood pressure and heart rate, I urge you to contact your doctor. Most doctors have an answering service where they doctors can be contacted when the office is closed. Please make a call and direct your question to the doctor. You can also go to an Urgent Care or Walk-in-Clinic if there is one nearby.

Are you having symptoms connected with low blood pressure and heart rate? Any dizziness, fainting, falling, etc.?

Hi,

Of course you need to ask your doctor, but I (76 year old man) have been taking 25 mg timed release metoprolol once per day for 8 months along with 50 mg Flecainide twice per day for AFib diagnosed 8 months ago. Prior to taking these drugs with no meds, I usually had resting pulse in the 60s and systolic 120 or below. Now, my resting pulse goes as low as the high 40s, usually hangs out in the mid to high 50s, and my systolic never gets below 100 but pretty close to that as in 107 or so at times. These lower numbers caused by the drugs do not concern me or my cardiologist. I feel great and walk vigorously, bicycle, or lap swim every day with no problems.

@riverpark, I can't help bursting in here to spotlight the crucial benefit you have received from exercising vigorously and daily. So many of our friends here on Mayo Connect relate their problems with slowed and weaker heart beats while taking beta blockers of all kinds, but often make no mention of their exercise practices. Congratulations to you and thanks for making this point dramatically and convincingly. Martin

Wow, thank you for such kind remarks, Martin. I would hope that people consider exercising every day, at the highest level of intensity they can manage safely, as an absolutely essential requirement for the best health we personally can achieve and for pushing back at these various maladies that sneak up on all of us, especially as we age.

I need my energy back, I may need the Flecainide?

Hi hmccarth5,

I have no idea if you need Flecainide, and your medical team is the only source for that answer. In my case, I had a sudden onset of a total of 4 several-hours-long AFib episodes a few weeks apart beginning 8 months ago, and the Flecainide in concert with the metoprolol have put a stop to that so far. If anything, these drugs have given me less energy, making it a bit more difficult to exercise, but the lessening of any kind of arrhythmia makes it definitely worth that. However, by paying more and more attention to healthful diet and exercise habits and a more grounded emotional reaction to stuff in life, I am hoping soon to cut both drugs in half and perhaps even eventually eliminate them altogether.

I had Afib for one day on May 2022, I still on Motoprolol and Eliquis twice a day.
Are both are needed or can I gradually stop Eliquis

@ashfadel, as you know, Eliquis is an anticoagulant formulated to prevent blood clots from forming in the heart's upper chambers. I have been on another anticoagulant (Coumadin) since 2014 when I was diagnosed with Afib. My medical team said I should take it regularly, perhaps for years, to prevent clots from forming in my heart and traveling to my brain where they could cause a stroke. I remain on the drug although my Afib is virtually asymptomatic; I have no conscious recognitions of arrhythmia in my heart. But when I mishandled the Coumadin once in 2016, I suffered a "small stroke" that has left my nervous system slightly off-kilter -- no more strokes, but balance, memory, eyesight, smell, and taste (maybe more) are all affected somewhat. I have been offered Eliquis to replace Coumadin, but I have not felt it wise to make the switch, partly because clinics and hospitals sometimes don't have the Eliquis antidote on hand for emergencies that could allow a brain bleed to be devastating or deadly. Martin

I have suffered a irregular heart beat for thirty five years. I've been taking Metaprolol for approximately thirty years. 50mg in morning and sometimes 25mg at night. I still have arrhythmias and sometimes my pulse beats between 57 bpm and 65 bpm. I usually start feeling light headed if pulse goes into the 50 bpm yet all my cardiologist throughout the years see nothing wrong with a low pulse rate.
Biggest waste of my money and my insurance company was paying $30,000 for a LOOP recorder implanted in my chest. I could have a horrible irregular heartbeat episode YET this stupid LOOP recorder would report to my doctor "normal heart rhythm" even though my heart is beating irregular. After four years of this LOOP it was removed two months ago and never figured out why I have these irregular heartbeat episodes. Biggest waste of my time and money.

I was wondering if being on Metaprolol for so long could cause more heart irregularities???? None of the cardiologist I have seen throughout these 35 years ever acts concerned etc. BUT the arrythmias are driving me crazy. My current cardiologist said to me last week when I called her she said you had a loop recorder in your chest for almost 4 years and every time you had irregular heartbeat episodes you triggered the device to send those recordings to your doctors and they never ever saw any heart rhythm irregularities and it never ever reported that I had AFib. How in the world can I feel my heart beating irregular yet a loop recorder not throw a red flag regarding those episodes? This makes no sense to me and I feel like throughout the 35 years I have just wasted my time with all these cardiologists

Joanne, (I presume) Have you considered just having an ablation for your AFIB? After reading the book, "AFIB Cure" by John Day MD. I am strongly inclined to explore having the surgery for my long time AFIB problem, for which I have been on Propranolol and Xarelto. The book seems to encourage AFIB patients to have the procedure earlier, rather than as a last resort as I had been led to think of it. The technology now is quite advanced and outcomes are improving while complications become more rare.

Does anyone know something substative that Dr. Day and I may not? Ted