Amiodarone - alternatives?

[jmrobbi]

I had OHS in mid sep and they replaced my aortic valve and repaired my mitral valve. After surgery I was on Amioderone and after a couple of weeks my arrythmia went away until they took me off of it about a month later. A couple of weeks after that I started going into A-fib all of the time. My dr. put me on digoxin and Topral but after 5 wks or so with no effect (in fact it got way worse) he put me back on Amiodarone. It has helped but not greatly. I am only on 200mg though and I am pretty sure when I have my next appt he will want to up the amount I take. I really don't want to be on it at all if possible. Are there some other drugs I could ask the dr. about? Everything I read says it should be a drug of last resort and since we only tried one other course of drugs I doubt this is the only other one out there.

Thanks! Jeanne

[Natanni]

Hello

My husband had his AVR in Sept as well, and did go into A fib while still in the hospital. He was started on Amiodarone and sent home with 400 mg every day, and was dropped to 200 mg every day and did have 2 episodes of a fib at around 1 month post op and 6 weeks post op. He has since been in normal sinus rhythm since November, and was switched to Toprol XL 25 mg every day on Dec 13th, and has continued with sinus since.

Good Luck, Amiodarone is a whopper of a drug and for Nathan, it did the job, but it was very good to have him get off it asap.

Ann

[hensylee]

YES! there are alternatives to amiodarone. Go to the below forums, join, then ask Dr Rich what the alternatives are. You might also want to check out his home page to read much about the heart, medicines, etc. He has written an article on amiodarone that you can look up on the home page. He writes a new article each week and you can join to get it. His home page states all of his credentials. He will answer every question within a short time but won't give you personal medical advice.

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?nav=messages&tsn=1&tid=3392&webtag=ab-heartdisease

Home page:

http://heartdisease.about.com/library/community/blfpfrontpage.htm