"BETA BLOCKERS ARE GOOD FOR HEART FAILURE" >Page 1, 2
What to do if you have heart failure
If you have heart failure, what you should not do is wait expectantly for your doctor’s delicate sensibilities to come around.
For you, this is no time to be polite. This is life and death. You either ought to be placed on beta blockers now, or you ought to receive a cogent explanation as to why you – you in particular – should not receive them. (Not all heart failure patients can receive beta blockers. Those with significant asthma, for instance, or with very low blood pressure may not be able to tolerate the drugs.)
When you bring up the issue of beta blockers with your doctor, if he/she merely gives you a puzzled look, a vague answer, a statement to the effect that the data is still inconclusive, or a statement to the effect that the beta blocker studies must be bogus because everyone knows beta blockers are dangerous in heart failure – if your questions generate any of these responses, it’s time to get yourself to another doctor.
And don’t worry too much about embarrassing your doctor with your questions. Doctors are quickly learning to live with their patients coming in to office appointments armed with the latest data on their disease. Good doctors welcome it, realizing that patients who can spend hours on the Internet will often have a better grasp of the current state of affairs than they do. The patient, after all, can concentrate on becoming expert on a single disease, while the doctor is expected to know about every disease. Good doctors will accept this new reality not only with equanimity, but with enthusiasm. It’s a great way to keep up with medical progress.
In any case, whether you accept this idealized view of doctors’ open-mindedness or not, if you’ve got heart failure, it’s time to push the issue of beta blockers.
Links
Here is the press release issued when the COPERNICUS
trial was presented last month:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/000829/smithkline.html
The following press release is from March, 2000, when the COPERNICUS trial was stopped by the study monitors:
http://www.micromedex.com/hot_topics/hot-chmar.htm#carve
This link addresses the question of whether the newer, more expensive beta
blockers (such as carvedilol) offer some intrinsic benefit over older, cheaper
beta blockers in patients with heart failure:
http://www.office.com/global/0,2724,61-17797,FF.html
The following link is to a panel discussion regarding the role of beta
blockers in the treatment of heart failure.
This discussion predated the results of COPERNICUS.
It is rather complex in places, but clearly demonstrates a consensus
among experts that, even before this most recent study, data supporting the use
of beta blockers was overwhelming:
http://www.macmcm.com/accp/accp99_erbb.htm
What do you think? Enter the Heart Disease Forum:
