SOTALOL

SOTALOL AND SOTALOL AF ARE BOTH THE SAME DRUG??? WHY ARE THEY USED FOR DISFFERENT THINGS???   BETAPACE 80MG IS SOTALOL 80MG...  BETAPACE AF 80 MG IS SOTALOL AF 80 MG....  IS THIS CORRECT????

[acjviolin]

I take Sotalol, 80 mg twice daily (BetaPace).  Sotalol AF (BetaPace AF) is a different drug.  You may want your pharmacist to explain it to you, or your EP if you are under the care of one.  It is my understanding that the Sotalol is more for ventricular arrhythmias, but my EP has prescribed it for my SVT and AFib.  

[angstrommedhelp]

Nonsense. Same drug. Just the pamphlet has a different slant.
Sotalol [generic], Betapace and Betapace AF, are chemically identical.
Look at the formula that comes with the drug. Am I wrong?

Presumably they are made into "different" drug because of different uses by the FDA.

Sotalol can be quite dangerous when starting the drug due to its ability to
prolong the QT interval in the heart beat. This excessive caution by the FDA
probably, according to them, I think, justifies the confusion of the exact same
drug have 2 different names.

[aimele29]

My doctor prescribed me with sotalol hcl 80mg and it says its for ventricular arrhythmias and that I should have been in the hospital the first few days of starting the medicine but he didn't, I'm not sure if its because of what I have and he wasn't worried because he says that I have frequent and bigeminal pvc's and my heart rate got up to 158bpm. I go back to the doctor today, so I am hoping to find out more about what that means for me

[BobRBob]

Same drug, different insert and precautions. Who knows why.

I took Sotalol for a year before it stopped working. I asked my doc the same questions about startup in the hospital. He said it wasn't necessary in my case. I'm still here so he was right.