Amiodorone

[cynthia]

who has been on Amiodorone, for how long, any side effects and the success in suppressing AFIB??

[Zook94]

I was unlucky with Amiodorone, I began having corneal micro-attachments before they finished loading me in the hospital. Thankfully I was able to get them to take me off of it after 2 short months. It seems that I just don't play well with meds.

[cynthia]

what was the cause of the corneal micro attachments??

[Zook94]

Corneal micro attachments is a side effect of Amio, but it usually happens years after you begin taking it. Just my luck, it happened immediately.

http://www.eyes.org/common/attachments/articles/amiodarone_ocular_toxicity.pdf

Some reading on the subject.

[cynthia]

OMG! I didn't know that was a side effect. Thank you for the information. :shock:

[Ladydoberman]

I was also on Amiodorone. My problem was that I am allergic to Iodine, one of the ingredients. Needless to say I got a real nice rash and my neck swelled up. It is now 10 days since I stopped it and I am finally getting to normal. I must say tho, the Amiodorone, Atenolol combo I was on did do the trick. It stopped my Fib episode and lowered my rate from 120bpm to 80's. Just my luck tho. Amiodorone has a lot of side effects I was not to thrilled about. It is a very toxic drug to the body. High incidence of lung and liver problems as well as eye, and kidney. Go to webmd.com and look it up. You will be quite surprised. If you can handle it, it works very well.

[Chuck B]

I have been on amio for 5 years. I see halos around lights which I understand is fairly common. I have regular liver, eye, pulmonary function and thyroid tests. So far so good. It did work the best for me in relation to the other class 3 drugs I tried. I am on a dose of 200 mg which I think is the max that is recommended before major toxicity. My vision does seem to be getting worse and I have an eye appt this week. I have a post inquiring about amiodarone's cousin dronedarone which is now under clinical trials. If problems start with amio, then this may be an alternative for the future...

[Chuck B]

cynthia, I forgot to mention, I am also experienceing an ashen/blue skin tone on certain parts of my body---face -- especially nose. I have been told that this is not all that uncommon either.

[Sarah]

There is also dofetilide which is also a potassium-channel blocker like amio but without the side effects.

The catch with dofetilide is that it can cause a form of vfib, so you MUST start it in the hospital. It also doesn't play well with cipro, some diuretics, antifungals, anti-malarials, and about fifty other drugs (you get a list at the hosptial to hand out to everyone you meet).

That being said, it stopped my afib for two years very nicely.

PS
When you are in the hosptial to start it, if your QT interval goes above 500ms on half the regular dose, they discontinue it. They started me on the full dose and I hit 503. They backed me down to half, thought about it overnight and came back and said, um, yeah, you are not going to convert on anything less than a full dose (I'm special!), so we want to put you back up to a full dose. See how it goes. (And this is the MAYO CLINIC, by the way.)

I said, hey, sure why not? They could/should be able to reverse anything bad, I meant they probably had a syringe of magnesium taped to my chart! So, anyway, the second try and my QT hits 497 and stays there, so we were in business!

[anarad]

I was on Amiodarone for about a year or so as a last ditch effort to try and stop my AFIB. It didn't work for me. I also had to be real careful about being outside in the sun. Amiodarone will cause you to get sunburned real quick. SPF 50+ seemed to work a little....maybe motor oil would have worked :wink: Anyway, I'm glad I'm off it.....