Beta blocker rant....

dawny802 wrote: »

This is one of those days I just want to say screw this, accept my faith as being a fat person, and go sooth myself by stuffing twinkies in my mouth.
I had a cardio appointment 3 weeks ago because I've had episodes at night where I would wake up feeling off with a racing heart, dry mouth, tremors, ect. After being hooked up to a 24 hour monitor, they caught episodes of SVT and threw me on a beta blocker. The cardio said I'm following in my footsteps on my mother, who had congestive heart failure (my heart is perfectly healthy as of right now via echo) and I need to lose weight.
Three weeks has gone by and nothing. I actually weigh more than when I started. I've never eaten more salads and fruits than I have these 3 weeks than I have my entire life. I know beta blockers make it hard to lose weight, but I'm 100 pounds overweight. There's no way its slower my metabolism down that much, right?
On the plus side, my heart rate stays in the 70s when I'm walking around. Before, it was 90 (and both of these rates were while I was on beta blockers) so that's improving. So is it either have a fast heart rate and lose weight or be on beta blockers and die a miserable death with CHF? I don't care for either option. Cardio doesn't believe ablation is a option at the moment because my condition isn't bad enough.
Of course, at the end of the day, I know I'm doing better for my body by picking better choices but, some days, it just feels like a battle I'm not going to win.
Rant over.....if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go eat a salad. 🤨

Sorry to hear about the SVT. My daughter was diagnosed with WPW when she was 14. They put her on beta blockers in high school and they wiped her out. They fixed the heart issues but she was a zombie for the first few months on them. She'd be late to school, some days miss all together, and the school district was very unsympathetic. They put her on probation and mercilessly harassed her for being late and missing days until we finally gave them the finger and pulled her and put her in an online program. Took the doctors months to get her dosage right on the beta blockers, and finally when she was almost 16 they did RF ablation and managed to fix the extra pathway in her heart.

Now 23 years old she has had some similar symptoms return (she was told it could possibly return) but they say it's not bad enough yet. They gave her the option of beta blockers (which she refused for obvious reasons) and the option of just doing ablation anyway to see if they can find the pathway causing it (which she refused until they can diagnose it correctly). It's aggravating for her to say the least. Consider seeing a different doctor for a 2nd opinion, I'd say if you're waking up in SVT it's worth talking to a second doctor about ablation. The biggest risk with it is that they burn the wrong pathway and you live with a pacemaker the rest of your life. But if you go with a good surgeon that risk should be minimized. My daughter's was done in an afternoon as outpatient.

But yea, the beta blockers made her super lethargic. I know she gained a little weight with it as well, but at her age it wasn't a big deal back then. She certainly doesn't want to take them again though.