tachycardia-bradycardia
- by Tumbleweed
- 2018-10-15 22:16:27
- Conditions, Meds & Tests
- 1168 views
- 2 comments
Brief history. Fainted. Got heart monitor. Monitor showed tachycardia, quickly followed by lots of fainting and heart pauses and emergency pacemaker in August. This week PA started me on a beta blocker and blood thinner after onset of AFIB. I subsequently read that beta blocker can be harmful if I have tachycardia-bradycardia (which seems like a possibility). Should I be concerned?
2 Comments
Beta Blockers
by AgentX86 - 2018-10-15 22:54:33
Think of it this way, the pacemaker is your heart's accelerator. It can keep the heart rate up (takes care of the "brady" part) but it can't slow the heart down. It's only the accelerator. The beta blockers are now your brake (or more appropriately, your governor but it makes a messy analogy). Your doctor gives you enough of the beta blocker to keep you out of tachycardia and the pacemaker deals with the brady part, which can be exacerbated by beta blockers.
That said, beta blockers aren't all that risky with simple tachy-brady. I was on metoprolol, ameoderone, and sotalol (the last two at different times) for a decade and the last couple of years had tachy-brady with Aflutter. My EP wasn't as worried about the bradycardia nearly as much as the tachycardia. The pauses and syncope take you right out of the simple tachy-brady category, though. A pacemaker is a necessity.
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by Tracey_E - 2018-10-15 22:41:23
Beta blockers are a bad idea for untreated bradycardia because they can make it worse while treating the tachy. Yours is not untreated, the pacemaker will not let your rate get dangerously low.