Posted by Carl Plaskett on August 18, 2002 at 14:39:13:
In Reply to: Lone AF/Paul Whiting (re-post from response to 12/18/01 post) posted by Carl Plaskett on August 18, 2002 at 14:11:08:
Paul: I "moved" your post from where it appeared on the board because you posted as a "response" to Angie's post of 12/01, and few people might have seen it.
Now, as to your question re:flecainide/tambocor: If you have no other heart disease, this drug may work well for you. You should have regular liver function tests. If you have very alkaline urine, your kidneys may process and eliminate this drug slowly and you may need a lower-than-average dosage. If you have higher or lower than normal levels of potassium in your blood, that condition should be corrected before you take Tambocor.
My experience (and that of some others, I believe) is that it helped for awhile, then I went to 100mg, twice/day; then 200mg, twice/day. By that time, my afib was so debilitating and the side effects of Tambocor,Lanoxin, & atenolol were so bad that I changed doctors, rather than follow my former doc's recommendation of increasing it to 300mg, twice/day. Tambocor/flecainide are not much different than the rest of the anti-arryhthmic drugs in that they seem to lose effectiveness over time, for many, if not most people.
As to weaning oneself off this drug, I would guess that you are taking a pretty low dose as it is, but perhaps you might ask your doctor about trying it. Perhaps 25mg,twice/day would continue to keep your episodes at such an infrequent level (3 in 5 years is really low for any treatment). A coated baby asprin daily might be a possible prophylactic against possible stroke, since you didn't mention taking coumadin/warfarin. I didn't start drug therapy until afib attacks were at least twice/month.
You surely aren't ready to consider the maze or an ablation at this point in time!