Should I take betablockers?

May 18, 2007 7:58 AM

What should I expect from betablockers?

I have had a high heart rate since I was about 10. Nothing seems to be wrong with me, I am no more anxious than the next person, I take some asthma meds that my doc. seems to think might be causing the tachichardia.

Maybe I am a little anxious, but its nothing that hinders me. My doctor is worried that all this high rate will be detrimental to my heart in the long run. So now I have a prescription for betablockers. She said to see if "they made my life better" and it they didn't to quit taking them, especially if they made me tired or foggy. Now, I am not really interested in laying out a lot of money to "see if it makes my life better" when I personally do not notice my heart rate, but if its a "protect your heart thing" I am all for it.

I am healthy with bp that runs 106\67 the last couple of times in. We also discussed the asthma/betablocker issue and she seemed to think I would be ok.

posted by stormygrey to health (9 comments total)

i've been on beta blockers for the past two years due to atrial fib. when i first went on them, it took a little while to get used to. i thought they made me tired/foggy. it took about 6 months to get the dosage correct (started too low, went too high, finally settled in the middle). they're not like an aspirin where it's 'okay, headache gone'- you need to take them for a little while before you really get settled in with them.

alcohol is supposed to interfere with the effectiveness of beta blockers and i stopped drinking for my first year with 'em. once i had gotten things under control, i reintroduced alcohol without any problems.
posted by noloveforned at 8:24 AM on May 18, 2007

oh, and i forgot to mention - you are absolutely NOT supposed to 'quit taking them' cold turkey. you are supposed to slowly reduce the dosage over the course of a month or two.
posted by noloveforned at 8:25 AM on May 18, 2007

my late dad took them for a while and they made him sleepy
posted by matteo at 8:33 AM on May 18, 2007

I had a mild heart attack about a year and a half ago. As a result the docs put me on beta-blockers. I noticed the effects immediately. It made me tired and easily winded. If I would bend over and then stand up I would get dizzy. The skin on my face got dry and scratchy. The hardest part was actually feeling the effects on your heart.

Betablockers are basically a throttle on your heart. If it gets a chemical signal to speed up, the betablockers say, "whoa, easy there cowboy" and you feel your heart sort of, I don't know, prickle or something. It's the BBs putting on the brakes.

In my case, the doctors never found a cause for the infarction, even after a heart catheter was done and they assume it was a very mild thrombosis. Because they never found anything, I was very anxious for months and every time I would get this feeling in my chest, I would get very nervous and once I had a panic attack.

Like noloveforned said, a lot of the side effects can be overcome by finding the right dosage for you. I would assume (IANAD) that since you have no history of serious heart problems, they would start you on a very low dosage. I had to keep lowering my dosage to 25mg a day before I was comfortable.

Now as far as anyone can tell, I have a scar free, perfectly pumping heart. After 6 months, the doctor took me off the meds, cold turkey. Now, I'm training for a half marathon.
posted by chillmost at 8:55 AM on May 18, 2007

yep, my current dosage is 50mg a day (of the extended release tabs, Toprol XL). i started at 25mg, it wasn't enough and they over-compensated to 100mg. i eventually settled on 50mg.

and yes, 25 mg is reasonable to go off cold-turkey, anything more should be a gradual reduction.
posted by noloveforned at 9:00 AM on May 18, 2007

I take them for a-fib, and they're very effective. The newer ones have fewer side effects than older ones.

They also completely stop stage fright. A large fraction of solo musicians and actors use them. You need to adjust the dose carefully so you don't lose the energy that underlies stage fright.
posted by KRS at 9:56 AM on May 18, 2007

They're bad for folks with asthma and diabetes, as you pointed out. I don't really agree - never have - with the philosophy of giving a medicine and then giving another medicine to undo the side effects of the first medicine. What are you going to do to undo the side effects of the second medicine - give a third medicine? And then what about the side effects of the third medicine? Seems to me if you're taking a beta agonist and a beta blocker at the same time, you are just setting up to have each of the medicines interfere with the benefical effects of the other.

That aside, beta-blockers can cause depression - the mood disorder - although the newer cardioselective ones like metoprolol and atenolol are supposed to do this less. They also cause vivid, sometimes unpleasant dreams.

The worst side effect that young healthy people complain of in my experience has been exercise intolerance. If you take enough to abolish your tachycardia, that means you can't get tachycardic anymore, even if you're sprinting full bore. People who like to do aerobic exercise find that this spoils their workouts.
posted by ikkyu2 at 2:04 PM on May 18, 2007

I was prescribed some a while back in an effort to banish some migrane type headaches I was getting. I am a 35yo fit male with lowish BP. They were a disaster for me. Within a day or two of starting them, my resting HR had dropped to 35 beats a minute, and when exercising, I couldn't get my HR over 140. I would grey out every time I stood up. In short, I felt like I was about to die.

Other people I've spoken to suggest my reaction to them was a little extreme. It might be the fact that the BB's were being prescribed to fix a non heart related problem ie the headaches. Given that my heart was functioning normally to begin with, the blockers could only lower things to an abnormal level. The only advice I can give that's not entirely personal to my situation is that beta blockers are serious drugs that will tinker with some pretty fundamental stuff. If that's what you need, then so be it. If you're taking them on the off chance it will have an ancillary effect, steer clear.
posted by tim_in_oz at 4:53 PM on May 18, 2007

I was on propranalol for about 9 years. I must say at first I had "heavy" feeling legs and arms when trying athletic activities for about 2 weeks, then got adjusted. Worse of all however, I realize my memory of these past 9 years is dulled and some events I can't remember. Now i read about propranolol being used to dampen memory for trauma victims.
I'm currently on ToprolXL because my pulse stayed high after tapering off propranolol. No side effects to report after almost a year and memory greatly improved.
posted by swiffa at 2:31 AM on May 19, 2007