Amlodipine . Feel shocking
Posted , 5 users are following.
please help.. i recently posted about problems with amlodipine. I had been taking 5mg for about 4/5 years.. few problems but ok. After suffering a few fainting episodes my dr upped my dose to 10 mg. Enter anxiety, palpitations, sweating, loss of appetite!
My endocrinologist said on friday that i shouldnt be on these tablets due to having had a blood clot in the past. Impossible to get appointment with dr but manage to get a telephone consultation of sorts 4 days later, where she simply says "well stop taking them". I'll see you in 3 weeks and see how you are.
I seem to be suffering withdrawal symptoms but dont know if these are just in my head, or if they are just the horrible effects if the amlodipine that havent gone yet? I'm so fed up of feeling horrible !
0 likes, 15 replies
Maggie-M beverley58530
Posted
How long have you been off the tablets? The longer you're on them, the longer they take to leave your system.
beverley58530 Maggie-M
Posted
Hi Maggie -M only 3 days, so im presuming im still suffering the effects of these horrible tablets. Im hoping i'll start to feel better when they are out of my system.
Maggie-M beverley58530
Posted
Hi! I don't want to upset you but it could take weeks or even months. The various symptoms, in my case, disappeared one at a time. Hang in there.
beverley58530 Maggie-M
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its good to know that they disappeared though. Makes me more optimistic .
mfrancesd beverley58530
Posted
I had very different effects from Amlodipine and it's been a year since I've been off it... But I still have problems from it. I'm much better but it's a super slow process for me. I think I was highly sensitive to this medication. My brother is a toxicologist and he thinks I wasn't metabolizing it correctly and that it was building up in my bloodstream-- something he said can happen especially in women over 50. I was only on 2.5 mg for 5 months before going off. It got so bad with severe muscle cramping, especially in my neck (among many other things) that I could not work for two months or do anything else. But as soon as we realized maybe my problem was this drug (after a brain MRI and neck MRI and lots of blood tests-- all good), I felt better within 4 days-- neck pain was better. I'm telling you all of this because it may take a long time, but hang in there. I will never take this drug again, or likely any blood pressure medication. Interestingly, I do not have high blood pressure! I think I had "white coat syndrome", meaning I was nervous in the doctor's office. I took my blood pressure at home every day for 6 months after going off this medication and it was not high. Now I take my blood pressure once a week. I had my blood pressure machine checked at the doctors office to make sure it's good, too. I think doctors are very quick to put people on medication-- it's the only answer they often have. I really wish I had been a better consumer and said I wanted to track my blood pressure at home for a few months first.... This medication has really messed me up-- lots of nerve tingling/burning, muscle cramping (the worse was in my neck), joint pain and other weird things have happened since this medication was in my system. Good luck and maybe figure out if you should be on any medication at all. There is a good book called the Disease Dilemma that I found to be super helpful. Take care.
beverley58530 mfrancesd
Posted
hi, thank you. I agree, i think it causes all sorts of problems. I was on 5mg fir ages and had niggly problems , but then strangely , because of these problems they upped the dose, and thats when the horrible side effects kicked in. I have had horrific neck/upper back pain among other things, along with terrible heat intolerance. One of the most annoying things is i developed tinnitus, which i NEVER associated with this drug, but gave since found out is quite common. Even my dr brushed it off!! Its good to know that I'll get there .
mfrancesd beverley58530
Posted
i developed tinnitus too! It is better now but not gone. Its been horrible! I now have eustacian tube dysfunction which they say causes the tennitus. The E tube dysfinction is from my allergies. But Ive had these allergies for years and never had this problem. and i have no new allergies. Basically this drug has affected everything. Ive been told that once you get tennitis it may never go away completely. im learning to deal with it and it is less. Its a long slow process
mfrancesd beverley58530
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that book is called the disease dillusion. I had the name wrong
beverley58530 mfrancesd
Posted
I was sent to the hospital with my tinnitus and fitted with hearing aids, but my GP never once said it may be connected. As we speak I have dreadful ear ache so am wondering if this us a bit of a withdrawal symptom? I will seek out that book.
mfrancesd beverley58530
Posted
I'm assuming they checked your hearing and you have hearing loss? They checked mine twice and I don't have any hearing loss. Whatever it shows is consistent with my eustatian tube dysfunction which means the tube is inflamed from my allergies and the inflamation is causing the tinnitus.
For me what is interesting (and really frustrating and unfortunate) is that many, many things have happened to me since being on and then off this drug that I've never had before. Definitely when I was on the drug the joint issues, muscle cramping and tingling/burning in limbs were all due to the drug. The tinnitus started also while I was on the drug-- a few weeks before I stopped it. I don't remember my ear tube feeling clogged then, but so many things hurt. I recorded everything every day and it wasn't until a few months after going off the drug that I noted clogged ears/pressure. After going off the meds-- and I'm sure it was still my system and definitely messed up my system-- I experienced severe pain/cramping/big knot in my right thigh. I developed plantar fasciitis, tennis elbow, de Quervain's tenosynovitis (painful tendon issues in wrist that's connected to the thumb) in both hands and trigger finger in my thumb. The thumb and thigh are completely better. The plantar fasciitis is a lot better. The worse thing is the eustacian tube dysfunction and the tingling/aching/burning in my hands, arms and legs (legs especially when lying down). My hands/fingers also feel stiff and swollen even though they aren't swollen. I'm 54 years old and never had any of these problems prior to my first symptons that appeared two weeks after starting on Amlodipine in March 2018. I stopped the meds in July 2018 and I'm still dealing with this. I am better overall, though. I started seeing a Chinese herbalist in December and I do think that's helping. I haven't seen him in a month and can tell I'm getting a little worse-- this happened when I couldn't see him in April, too. He thinks this has really affected my circulation (which makes a lot of sense to me) and that I may not have been in good "balance" (yin/yang balance) before being on the meds, but wasn't experiencing symptoms yet, and the meds tipped me over the edge causing lots of things to happen. I'm pretty much fed up with Western doctors. When I saw a different doctor in December, she wanted to put me on another blood pressure medication because it was high in her office. She hadn't listened to a word I'd said... I told her about my readings at home, how I was still experiencing problems from Amlodipine, etc... I hope you get some relief soon....
beverley58530 mfrancesd
Posted
thank you. sounds like you have had a horrible time. Ive bought myself a decent blood pressure machine and ive found its been better since i stopped taking the amlodipine. Pretty much normal , 135/85 Very odd.. i agree the drs really dont listen. Mine wanted me to take antidepressants to deal with the anxiety caused by the amlodipine, and on checking my online medical records she has written that shes going to put me on a different blood pressure tablet when i go in 2 weeks!
mfrancesd beverley58530
Posted
your blood pressure is good!
MrsO-UK_Surrey beverley58530
Posted
If you haven't been on the increased dose for very long then you should be lucky in finding that the side effects or at least some of them resolve in quite a short time. I am highly sensitive to medication and Amlodipine caused such swelling of my ankles when taking the first time some years ago that the GP diagnosed varicose eczema and stopped the pills. However, my consultant recently pleaded with me to try them again, this time with a diuretic to offset the swelling. It didn't! So it was replaced with a similar performing pill called Felodipine which was available in a very much smaller dose of 2.5mg. Again, the swelling, inflammation, and this time a very flushed face. I (stupidly) tried to persevere with this pill and the side effects for a few months so that my consultant could see for himself the side effects and know that I wasn't exaggerating. The day before my appointment I got out of bed with horrendous foot pain and two swollen and red toes. At my appointment gout was diagnosed, triggered by the pill. I will never ever take either of these pills again. The flushing of my face side effect disappeared within a week or so but the inflammation (redness/discolouration) in my lower legs remains to this day (two months after stopping it) where the medication has aggravated the blood vessels so I've got to live with it. Hopefully, you will be luckier but do give it a chance and meanwhile drink plenty of water to flush the toxins out of your body.
beverley58530 MrsO-UK_Surrey
Posted
poor you, sounds awful. I have been on the increased dose since june so hopefully these side effects wont take too long to disappear. The tinnitus is awful but i think its the anxiety which had hit hardest, as ive never suffered with this before. Horrible drug. Definitely drinking lots of water to flush it out.
Claire672498 beverley58530
Posted
did your tinnitus ever resolve? thanks - am going through this myself