Metoprolol Withdrawal (Page 40)

i've been taking metoprolol for several years as partial treatment for high blood pressure. through diet and exercise, i've lowered my BP to the point my doctor says drop the metoprolol.

i did, 3 days ago, and i'm soooo tired, dizzy, irritable, and my vision is blurred.

is this withdrawal? how long will it last?

i remember starting this medication was terrible to get used to. it appears that stopping it is just as bad.

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Thanks all for ongoing support all. Weirdo head-good description! Glad someone knew exactly what I am talking about. It's so hard to feel awful and look normal. I know my family is as tired as I am of me having Wonky head days. And yes, the Anxiety of worrying that you will never be "right" again is HARD to ignore. Every morning is a crap shoot, never knowing what kind of day is in store once you get up and get moving. Tough to deal with when I have always been a morning person. Thanks for letting me whine.

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CJ, for what it's worth, it took me about four to five weeks to wean off of the Metoprolol, and once I went cold turkey, it took at least another month for the majority of my symptoms to calm down to the point where I felt as though I was finally getting better. The symptoms included heart palpitations, dizziness, angina, shortness of breath, etc., etc. My last dose was in June, and I still get palpitations once in a while. For the most part, though, I'm feeling back to normal. I had similar issues with the anesthesia from a surgery I had in 2012, and it took me seven or eight months to fully recover. It seems that most of here have a high-sensitivity to drugs that have an effect on the central nervous system, so about the only thing we can do is to ride things out the best we can. I was tempted to take the "M" several times during the course of my withdrawal period. As much as I wanted to give in to feel better, I decided the better course of action was to stick to my goal of getting off this horrible drug once and for all. The thing is, a person just has to be very careful while being fully aware of his or her limitations, for some of the reactions that some of us have during the weaning process and withdrawal can be life threatening. I'm just sorry to hear that so many folks continue to have problems with this drug.

And Tony, if you're pop in from time to time, let us know how you're doing, ok? I'm quite certain that some of us have been worried about you. I hope all is well!

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I know this may be a shocker to you. I have had heart palpitations for 7 years straight and a year ago I found that aspartame sweetener was causing it. The weird thing was that I had been using that sweetener for 15 years, so this is why it took me so long to figure it out. I use to have heart palpation's daily and always had a fear of dying from them. Horrible 7 year ride! If you use artificial sweeteners and stop them be sure to give it a couple of weeks for palpitations to go away. This stuff needs time to flush from your body. Please let us know if this helps any of you out there. Thanks!

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Good grief I am still having a heck of a time! I am still taking "dust" every 2 days because I start withdrawling so bad. I have to work and have to take it to keep going. I feel terrible on it but feel like im gonna die when im withdrawling. I cant take a smaller dose its not possible. How am I supposed to get off this crap?! Im at a loss of what to do. The withdrawal scares me bad. I was off for 3 months last time but it was a rough ride and I started a new job and had to get bk on it. Any advice on a better weaning process or vitamins to help? Something??

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I have been off this stuff for a week now, and yesterday was iffy and today is BAD. Pounding heart, feeling like I'm falling, anxious, just AWFUL. Why on EARTH is this stuff so bad that even a slow careful detox of a tiny amount still entails backlash like this. It's SO HARD to fight the fear and anxiety this produces. I had a few pretty good days last week after the proverbial days three and four after final dose, but gees, now I'm paying for them. I'm scared today. :'(

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Sandra and Lauren, so sorry to hear that the two of you are struggling with this stuff. Perhaps Bee could pipe in with some thoughts about supplements, for they really seem to help some people. For anxiety, I found that L-Theanine helped some.....not great, but it did help to take the edge off a bit. I'm not sure what to say about weaning, but it was about a six-week process for me followed by a month of hell during the withdrawal period. But I got through it, as many of us finally managed to do. It's a tough ride......no doubt. I feel for you, and I sincerely hope the two of you can get beyond it.

Terry, I'm pretty familiar with aspartame and the harmful effects it can cause. However, I've been avoiding it for years, so I highly doubt that it's causing any palpitation issues for me. Still, this is good advice for those who are continuing to have issues with Metoprolol, for it certainly can't be of any help in any way.

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Reading thru all the posts again has been once again so helpful. Day 7 completely off, I see now that the Day 6 Kick was grabbing me yesterday. I slammed a ton of water and rode thru it and felt a bit better by late afternoon. Today I am slightly 'buzzy' but no where near where I was yesterday. From all the posts I guess I can anticipate more fun times as I get farther out from last dose. Hopefully I will shed most of this completely at the one month marker. I did look up the Tapping, boy does THAT look interesting! I tried some last night and it did seem to quickly tamp down anxiety. I will be exploring this further! Before thyrotoxicosis issues and then M poisoning I was the Supplement Queen, but I am down to very little because of my now exaggerated response to EVERYTHING I intake. As I head back towards 'normal' I hope to be able to restore what was a very helpful regimen of supplements. I eat a grain free diet, and very little to no dairy, take Ubiquinol (very helpful with palps), Choline, and Oregano Oil- best thing for avoiding colds and pneumonia I have found. Tart cherry at night. Onwards and forwards one day or hour at a time to good health. Thank you one and all for this wonderful forum of information and support!!!

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Just stick with it and hang in there, Lauren! You'll make it! Each week will get noticeably better until one day you'll wake up and feel somewhat normal again. It'll be the best feeling ever, because that'll be the day when you'll know with absolute certainty that quitting the "M" was well worth the effort. I can't even begin to describe it, but you'll know once you're there.

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Hi Lauren:

Listen to Jimbo...I've been off of it for months, and my blood pressure is fine. ...but when I was weaning, I never thought I would ever be able to completely get off, and I never thought that I would ever feel normal again. If you can hang in there and let time work for you, it will be worth it...and I honestly don't know if I would have been able to hang in there without this thread. Remember, all of us has been through this, so we understand. You can do this. We're proof that it can be done. At some of my lowest points, I would reread the thread and it made a huge difference.

Hope this helps

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Glad to hear you made it, Toonces! That's great news! You're spot-on about this thread, too, for it certainly helped me as well. I wish there were more 'user-friendly' forums available to us, but thankfully this one is here for us.

Hey Tony.......are you out there? If so, it would be great to hear how you're doing!

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Did anyone here consult his or her PCP and substitute another of the many different families of antihypertensives rather than treating metoprolol as if it were methadone. Many of the symptoms described clearly are rebound hypertension and I'm not even a cardiologist. I"m a psychiatrist. Even docs only make very minor changes to their meds without consulting the prescriber or experiencing an unacceptable adverse effect de novo. Even so, the prescriber is informed, You can't just forget about hypertension and think it'll go away. (It may seem to "go away" — I did enough autopsies as an first-year resident on former people who labored under that erroneous assumption.) Hypertension is not known as the "Silent KIller" without good reason.

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Lol I never have been hypertensive. Fortunately for me my PCP realizes how hypersensitive I am to everything and is working with me, not throwing some other toxin at me. THANK YOU all for continuing encouragement. I just went thru about of food poisoning, and after feeling normal yesterday, really normal, I am having M-Zapp today. Pushing thru it. We can't all be wrong! I have basically nixed all my holiday plans because I can't depend on feeling ok yet. There's always next year. ANYTHING to feel better for good. Jimbo I am SO looking forward to THAT day!!!

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Dr. Joey, I don't mean to sound critical of your contributions here, but most people on this forum fully understand what hypertension is and how to deal with it. In my case, I lost enough weight that my blood pressure and heartbeat dropped to dangerous levels. I absolutely needed to get off of the Metroprolol. Other people are on beta blockers for other reasons other than hypertension, too. The fact is, Metroprolol (and beta blockers in general) causes an extreme reaction with serious side effects in some people, and the vast majority of doctors out there have no understanding of why this is occurring. My point is simply that most people here seem to have a pretty solid idea of what they're up against when it comes to knowing what they need to do about hypertension and the drugs they may or may not need to take. For most folks on this forum it's simply about getting off this horrible drug. Joey, unless you've experienced this first-hand, I doubt that you'd understand. Sorry for the mild rant!

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable Christmas......... : )

Frank

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Hi Lauren...you hit the nail on the head for me when you said, "We can't all be wrong."

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Hi Jimbo:

Thanks for speaking out. I lost over 100 pounds, and when I took my bp at home it would get down to 80/60ish. When I called my doctor, they told me to make sure that I was drinking enough water to keep my pressure high enough. ...And this my current Doctor whom I respect, trust and like. That being said, I knew I had to do my own research to find my own health answers to get off of bp meds or lower dose, etc. little did I know that weaning off of it would cause a slew of physical, mental and emotional side effects. Once all of the side effects started, of course, I wanted to not wean off even with bp that was too low. The positive support from people on here who generously shared personal details of their struggles are what validated and helped me get off of the stuff. I felt support because everyone on here has been through or is currently going through getting off of this stuff. If you aren't trying to get off of it, why would you be on the thread?

I take my bp several times a week and keep a log. My bp is typically 110/75. I agree that people on here understand bp issues, and some aren't even on met for bp issues.

i agree that I wish there were more honest and positive threads like this one for other topics.

Thanks for listening...

Merry Christmas to All :-)

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I took Metoprolol for about two weeks... I stopped and it's been 7 days off the medication but still having slide side effects...they say it can take 3 weeks for the medication to be out of your system.

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HI everyone. I've been off metoprolol since May 2015 (after 10 years). Didn't know if I would make it to December but I did. Thanks in part to the support on this thread.
November and December were good months. The waves of anxiety, depression and fatigue were getting shorter (sometimes only lasting a couple hours, the most 2 days). and I felt a lot better (still not 100%) for most of these months. However, I'm on my 2nd week of bad symptoms. Anxiety, depression, in varying intensity,This weird fatigue when I eat or sit down. Where I wanna almost faint. Idk what to do. Are these still withdrawals? It's lasting longer than usual. Am I doing something else to myself or could have some other disease? I'm worried because I was feeling so much better. Anyone else experiencing this. I take Xanax on occasion to help the anxiety,m

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Danny, of course, I can't be certain if what you're feeling are still side effects from Metroprolol, but if you're highly sensitive to the drug, as many of us are, I wouldn't be surprised if it still had a grasp on your system. I've been off since June 10th, and I still get mild heart palpitations as well as fatigue from time to time. The fatigue is a mystery to me, for it comes and goes without warning, but it'll only last for about three or four days at a time. Thankfully I'm over the anxiety, but I know I'm not 100% yet.

Toonces......I hear ya! In many ways we were in the same boat. I only lost about 35 pounds before going off the M, but it was enough to make a significant difference in my blood pressure.

And, who in the heck signed my last post as "Frank?".......LOL.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Jim

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Thanks for this thread. It is good to know you aren't alone.

My doctor gave me clearance a while ago to stop Metoprolol. I have a rapid heartbeat (diagnosed as SVT) occasionally. A few times before the cause was known I was in the ER with my heart pounding for no obvious reason. All cardio tests have been done, echo, EKG, stress test. Basically it's not sever or frequent enough to call for ablation, which is the only "fix" for the problem.

To give a bit more detail on my SVT rhythm issue, I have found that with compacting of my abdomen (like crunching down, straining hard to poo type of a motion), this has sometimes triggered it. This is interesting since this type of vagal maneuver is often suggested in the event of a noticed arrhythmia, and to stop palpatations in some cases. The effect has been the opposite for me, to which all the docs over the years throw their hands in the air and say "don't know (shrug)". In my case I've been able to sometimes stop the rapid beat by stretching out my abdomen. At any rate, it's probably vagus nerve related. Who knows exactly how.

So back to Metoprolol. I'm in pretty good shape. I let myself go in my 30s and now @ 40 I'm ripped 155. At my worst I was 265. I had lots of problems from the extra weight, and the SVT was worse while out of shape. I was on the max metoprolol dose for most of the last 2 decades, but as I've got myself together in recent years the dose has been lowered. Weighing so much less, I was having very very low blood pressure with high does of Meto. As of the last discussion with my doc, I was @ 25 mg in the morning and 25mg at night.

Even with this low dose I was still getting some drowsiness. And I'm very focused on heath now, I eat what I guess is a pescatarian diet, which is basically a vegan diet but I also eat chicken and fish. Anyway, the idea of taking a man-made drug forever is concerning. When you look at the official data about meto, it says clearly that they don't really know what the long term effect is of taking it for years and years. So I decided, alright, let's do this.

So last evening I didn't take my 25mg. Again I was free to do this any time per my doc. Everything seemed fine. Slept ok. No issues to speak of this morning. Went to lunch and went to WalMart this afternoon. Had a cart full of stuff and was in the check out line, and my chest feels like it's pounding. This was not a SVT incident. I was a bit dehydrated after the big lunch, which will make my heart feel like it's beating harder. But guess what else metoprolol does? Dampens your adrenaline. Did I mention that I used to have anxiety disorder? Yeah. Boom. Full blown panic attack at the check out of Wal Mart. My mind says "Well you don't have any meto with you even if you wanted to take it. You don't have any aspirin. Are they going to take you out of here in an ambulance??"

I take a bottle of cold water from checkout cooler, back up out of the line and push my cart, looking for somewhere to sit down. Ended up in in the shoe department sitting on the bench, trying to quell the panic attack. I succeeded. Tried to look as normal as possible while doing it, employees and customers walking around. Awful. So to this guy saying he's a psychologist, and talking down to people referring to metoprolol as though it were "methadone", take a hike pal. If you even are a real doc, then you know people don't like the idea of a drug controlling them or being dependent on it, and you also know that anxiety is real, and often irrational. So yeah, take a hike, and that's putting it MUCH more nicely than I'd like to. Does this scene I described above from earlier today sound fun to you?

Anyway, I beat my anxiety disorder via an awesome therapist who is an expert in EMDR therapy. EMDR is amazing, and it has changed my life. It has been shown to get people with even severe warsone-level PTSD back to a functioning state in as little as 6 sessions. Seek it out if you have anxiety. And this experience today, this was first panic attack in I don't even know how long, brought on by my no longer having that "adrenaline protection" that metoprolol gives, as far as I can tell. I've had two more since. Not fun.

So yes, getting off metoprolol is a big deal. It is not easy. But YOU are STRONG. Say it out loud to yourself RIGHT NOW. I - AM - STRONG. I - WILL - WIN!

And I am. And so are you. And we will win. Follow your doctor's instructions, and plant your feet. You will get through it.

A couple other things to share.

I found this earlier. I have been wanting to get into more meditation. This is very entry-level and I find her voice soothing. She is also an EMDR practitioner I noticed. It costs $3 on amazon for the mp3: "Guided Relaxation for the Body and Mind" by Heidi Minnick, Ph.D.

I have tried every imaginable calming breathing technique, and I find Dr. Weil's 4,7,8 technique to be extremely effective:

drweil.com/drw/u/VDR00112/The-4-7-8-Breath-Benefits-and-Demonstration.html

I wish you the best. Be strong.

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Great post, Ed! Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I agree wholeheartedly about this so-called shrink guy that we see on occasion. I'm sure several others feel the same. I like your idea of beating these issues with Metoprolol, too! It's very difficult to understand unless you've been there.

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