Member Profiles
KEN
I am a 65 year old male who has Atrial Fibrillation. For several
years I seemed to suffer good and bad days. On bad days I felt tired and any
exercise resulted in a shortness of breath, on good days I felt fine. I have
never smoked, am a very moderate drinker and I have always had good blood
pressure.
Two years ago, I was diagnosed with AF. I was put on a course of amiodorone
which at first seemed to work. But on follow up visits to the cardiologist, on
some occasions my ECG waveform was steady and on others it was irregular.
I am a retired electronics engineer so I set about building my own ECG to
display heart waveforms on my PC and I began taking my ECG twice a day. I found
that my ECG waveform would be regular for two or three days followed by about 10
days of arrhythmia. When I went to the cardiologist it was a lottery as to what
state I was in on that particular day
It became apparent that the amiodorone was not working. By then I had been
taking the amiodorone for 9 months and the cardiologist suggested that I stop
taking it and allow about two months for amiodorone to be eliminated from my
system. He then suggested that I try flecainide.
For two weeks I took 50mg of flecainide twice a day with no effect, I remained
in arrhythmia. At the suggestion of the cardiologist I then increased the dose
to 100mg. The effect was dramatic. The next day my heart went back into a
regular beat and remained so for the next 10 days, during which time I continued
to take 100mg of flecainide twice a day. Then the irregular heart beat started
again.
After some experimentation I found that if I an in arrhythmia, suddenly
increasing or decreasing the dosage will, within 24 hours cause to heart to
revert back to a regular rhythm.
The technique I have developed is that when I go into arrhythmia I stop
flecainide for two days then take a 150mg dose followed by a 100mg dose 12 hours
later. Within a couple of hours, the arrhythmia stops. It works every time! Over
the next couple of days I taper the dose down to 50mg twice a day. This
maintenance level gives fewer side effects than 100mg.
I am now going for 10 to 15 days between arrhythmia periods. I have not yet
worked out what causes the sudden jump back into arrhythmia but on two occasions
it followed a tiring 6 hour drive so stress may be the cause.
Because suddenly changing dosage either up or down will stop the arrhythmia, I
assume that it is some form of chemical shock that does the trick. It may be
that the heart would flip in the other direction if the “shock” occurs while the
heart is in regular rhythm but for obvious reasons I am not prepared to try
this. I am wondering whether this “shock” effect is the basis of the warnings
that flecainide can actually cause arrhythmia.
I would like to hear from anyone who has had similar experience with flecainide.
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