I didn't know that about house centipedes. They sure are creepy looking.
I'm glad we can make each other laugh now and then. I think we had been trying to make a point of bookmarking our more entertaining threads at one point, but I will openly admit I—for one—am woefully behind on updating health pages, including bookmarking important threads/posts.
You've got to watch out for those lecherous spiders! Don't even get me started on the house centipedes ... Ack!! I suppose they do have one redeeming quality: they go after the spiders. :-p
Thank you for your reassuring words (everyone). I appreciate you take time out of your day especially when you are probably dealing with your own symptoms!
Heiferly, I was reading a post earlier you had commented on that made me laugh. You had a spider crawl on your computer and you sat in a corner waiting until your nurse came to kill it. I have the same intense fear of anything with more than 4 legs and can definitely relate to that!
A side effect of beta blockers can be lower bp, so that may be what stopped your BP from going up after you took the atenolol.
I don't have an explanation for the rest of it with regard to the midodrine, though. I definitely hope your cardiologist gets to the bottom of it with you. Hopefully they can make an adjustment that solves the issue or suggest an alternate medication. There are plenty of other treatments out there, so don't worry if you can't tolerate the midodrine for whatever reason!
I'm glad that you had no serious lasting effects from the reaction, and I hope you find out something positive when you see your cardio in January. Do keep us updated. I do understand how unsettling PVCs can be. Like you, even understanding that they are benign, I am cautious whenever any arrhythmia I have takes on a pattern or symptomology that is atypical *for me* and will generally either put in a call to my cardiologist's nurse or (if it seems particularly urgent/distressing) to the cardiologist on call to inquire about whether or not I should be concerned about the change. In one or two instances they have told me to head to the hospital, so it really is best to refer to the discretion of the experts whenever something is different than what is normal in our own individual case.
Heiferly, I am not on any medications or supplements. My blood pressure was up and down until I took the atenolol. Then it stopped going up because the midodrine was wearing off I suppose.
I could probably tolerate all the body sensations I got even the headache while taking the midodrine but I did not feel comfortable with my heart racing and PVCs. I am quite used to the occasional PVC but not when they are happening 4+ in a row. That scares me. I have been told they are benign but still its a little unsettling for me :(...I have sceduled another appointment with my cardiologist on Jan 23rd. I won't try taking the drug again until I see the dr.
In every day English, it sounds like it is supposed to raise blood pressure without getting the heart involved.
Your body's mechanism to raise blood pressure with P.O.T.S. involves your heart rate speeding up. However, this is a vasoconstricting drug that forms a metabolite in active form which is suppose to not be stimulating to cardiac beta-adrenergic receptors according to official FDA information.
Yeah... midodrine has made my life even worse, I remember one of the worse side effects I had was tingling but it wasn't just around the scalp sometimes it would be my whole body. I Started to develop horrible head pressure after I started the drug and now the pressure is a bigger problem than my POTS. I'd assume midodrine increase heart rate though? Because I thought in order to raise blood pressure you need to raise heart rate.
What I seem to recall was that midodrine gave me chest pains... don't know if it increased my heart rate or not, but I did go off that drug. I'm sorry you had an adverse reaction!
I WAS UNABLE TO TAKE MIDODRINE AS WELL, HAD ALL KINDS OF PROBLEMS AND IT REALLY DID NOT HELP WITH MY PAF. SO YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
I've got nothing. They did start you on a very low dose of the Midodrine, so I definitely don't think it's likely to be dose-related. Are you taking any other medications or supplements that it possibly could have interacted with?
Did your systolic BP remain elevated until you took the atenolol, or did it go down before that? I'm not sure what to make of the fact that your pulse pressure widened to 60 during this episode; one would expect a wide pulse pressure like that during exertion (i.e. exercise). I'm not sure what other things can cause that to occur.
I definitely think a phone call to your cardiologist would be warranted, rather than waiting it out until your next appointment to let him/her know that the medicine didn't work out as expected. They may have further advice.