OrlandoTommy said:
Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for all the good info and suggestions, def makes me feel much better.
My surgeon is from the Cleveland Clinic and is supposed to be one of the most experienced in the nation, he does between 200-250 valve replacements per year. So im a little hesitant to question him, he put me on the Ami when i went into Atrial Fib and he wants me to stay on it for another 2 months, 200mg per day one tablet every morning.
I go to see my cardiologist May 7th and im going to let him know about the drug as well and see what he says.
My doctors at the hospital all seemed to agree with me being on it, so im a little confused because I believe everyone here since they have dealt with it happening to them.
Ill keep you all posted, i did ask my surgeon "what if i stopped the ami right now" and he said i would be fine, but i think he has me on it for the Coumadin.. i dunno, so confusing...uhggg.
Thanks and ill update soon,
Tommy
HOLY CRAP that's a lot of amiodarone!!!!
It's bad stuff, very touchy and it reacts with EVERYTHING.
I was on it for about 10 months and I had to get all kinds of bloodwork to keep track of what it was doing to me chemically. It interacts with every other medication I was on at the time, furosemide, spironolactone, digoxin, lisinopril, and warfarin. Some of those meds it made more potent, some less. Digoxin and amiodarone do NOT mix well at all and I had to take them 12 hours apart because my docs felt I stood to gain some benefit from the amiodarone as I recovered from my surgery.
The stuff also reacts with a lot of foods, most notably grapefruit and grapefruit juice which you should NOT consume while on the drug.
It is a last resort medication, generally used to control arhythmias but there seems to be some debate over how useful/successful it actually is in moderating abnormal heart rhythms.
Who was your doc at Cleveland Clinic? I know that place like the back of my hand, both the hospital and the city. While My surgeon, Dr. Roger Mee, is back in Australia now, I still know most of the cardiologists and cardio/thoracic people out there.
Talk to your doc about what's going on. Make sure the amiodarone is absolutely necessary for your recovery and be sure your docs know not only your concerns, but everything there is to know about the episodes of blurred vision and any other "side effects" you've experienced.
Amiodarone will affect how warfarin metabolizes in your body. In that sense, it can affect INR/PT, but using amiodarone to control warfarin seems about as safe as using spinach and chick peas. There are other folks here that can explain that better than I can, but I do have a biology professor for a father so I know a little about what 'm talking about.
You use a simple blood test to monitor INR/PT and you alter the dose of the anticoagulant based on the test results, you don't introduce another medication to off-set the anticoagulant except in circumstances when it needs to be done in a hurry, say for emergency surgery, and you do not use amiodarone for that.
It may be that my language is too strong here, I'm not a doc and I really don't know much more on this than from what I've experienced personally. I can say that there seem to be a number of means to manage both the arhythmias and clotting factors that would be far preferable to using a drug that will kill you if used for extended periods of time without close supervision (including frequent bloodwork) by a doctor.
Amiodarone is scary stuff and, frankly, I'm not sure it should be used outside of a hospital setting without good reason. The literature I've seen on it advises against amiodarone use for periods longer than six months because of a risk of death. You KNOW that's serious when they put that in there.
Talk to your docs, soon.