Bisoprolol withdrawal

Thank you for you reply so many people are having withdrawal symptoms and having to take further medication to alleviate the backlash of withdrawal along with other medical symptoms that the beta blockers have caused. I hope that you are having more good days than bad

Hi peter01729

So sorry to hear you still having side effects. I have heard it takes several months after stopping beta blockers for you body to get back to normal. How long were you taking them for and what dosage?

I had a good day yesterday but have had a really bad day today and the rate I am reducing I am still going to be on this poison for nearly another three months.

Do you find you are having any good days at all.

I wish everyone that has had any problem with beta blockers could send a petition to the government to let the investigate the problem. Both Doctors and pharmacists are adamant there are no side effects from stopping this medication.

The main symptoms of concern to me, was the feeling like a drunk zombie, and the feeling my lungs no longer worked automatically and I had to remember to breathe. I suspect they are related, that being that low blood oxygen makes you feel like a drunk zombie. Beta blockers act on the Autonomic Nervous System, its the ANS that measure your blood oxygen and get you to breathe without you even thinking about it.

So when I noticed the hospital monitor constantly bleeping because my oxygen was so low, I bought my own, you can see from the chart below how I would spend so much of the night below the 88% red line.

A full year after coming off beta blockers my constant cough from Solotalol , (another thing the ANS does is control the size of smooth muscular vessels such as the arteries to your heart and the bronchial tubes, when the tubes are constricted by a disrupted ANS, it triggers a cough reflex), stopped and my low blood oxygen spontaneously returned to normal levels.

The drunk zombie feeling remains to this day though and I often find my balance and sense of position in my environment wrong so that I bang into walls and people think I am drunk. My fear is that the low blood oxygen gave minor damage to my brain and nervous system, I also now have a measure of peripheral neuropathy.

I was taking beta blockers for about five weeks, minimum dosage which I soon cut in half as they made me feel so ill.

So I did a DNA test, turns out I have genes that make me a "slow metaboliser" of certain drugs including beta blockers, this means I gradually became overdosed and ended up in A&E when my pulse became so slow they couldn't detect it until they gave me oxygen, what this means is that your body hasn't gotten rid of the previous days dosage when you take the next days. They don't warm you things like that could happen!

I do find I am worst when its cold. Main thing with me, another thing controlled by the ANS, my stomach, when I eat I become so exhausted that I get much worst and so I now no longer eat a thing until its time for bed.

Hopefully yours will recover, though there is another chap here who is under the same cardiologist as I and who shares my long tern side effects, most people do make a full recovery.

Worst thing is the way the medical profession try to fob you off saying things like "its anxiety"m I;m sure they must know as there are so many of us.File size is too big

Hey, did you have any problems with your oxgen level and heart rate? I am now 2 months off Beta Blockers and it doesnt seem like its getting any better. My O2 level today ways only 90 and my heart rate has start dropping down to like 60-63. My Oxgen level is especially low at night and night. Also i get this tightness in my upper body and burning sensation all through my body. It is especially bad at night and certain periods of the day my legs and feet hurt and burn so bad. Then i get these real bad headaches. I have been to the E.R. seven times and now they have told me dont cone back. i have tried to explain to all my doctors they dont even understand and tell me its all in my head and throw anxiety pills at me at me that dont even help. I can only sleep about 4hrs total a day. Will this get any better?

I'm going through same thing right now and have had those symptoms for 15 months after coming off beta blockers after 30 years of use. You might consider a sleep study, sounds like sleep apnea, which can drop oxygen levels, cause severe chest pain, heart palpitations etc. I'm going through this right now as well. My blood oxygen dropped to 70 during study, which is way too low. When this happens at night your body releases adrenaline, which wakes you up and keeps me on edge. Worth checking out.

Hi Deek, just above your post you will see a picture of an overnight oxygen readout of mine, this was taken March 2018, I came off beta blockers a full year earlier. You will see the red line and that the green oxygen graph spends a considerable amount of time below this line, my average Oxygen was 84.4% and lowest 74% so yes, it was very low. As you can see, its not the normal sleep apnea which tends to be ok then drops sharply, this is pretty constantly low. The oximeter in hospital showed the same low readings.

You will also see from the blue heart graph that my heart rate was very variable for no reason. I was just sitting down once and my heart rate just went from normal to 147 and back for no reason, and note from ectopics.

The good news is, the following month, my persistent cough that I had gotten from the beta blocker Solatol, and the low blood oxygen, and the heart rate variability, all got better just like that. I presume my Autonomic Nervous System finally found its equilibrium after being knocked off by beta blockers a year earlier.

The bad news is other symptoms that are signs of damage from low blood oxygen to the nervous system for such a long time, remain, namely, the feeling I am a drunk zombie, and the same feeling you get that my legs and especially feet are on fire. Peripheral neuropathy can occur due to nerve damage from lack of oxygen.

You will constantly get fobbed off by doctors, its either that they know and want to hide it, or they don't have the answer and few of them are humble enough to admit that. My cardiologist changed his opinion after I explained all my symptoms were symptoms of a disrupted Autonomic Nervous System, and that beta blockers disrupt the ANS, and especially after he then got another patient with exactly the same long term problems from Bisoprolol, he is on this board in fact. Trouble is, when one doctor has written "Anxiety" on your notes, it makes up the mind of every doctor that follows.

You have my permission to use what I write to show your health professionals in the hope they might learn lots of people have this real side effect and so to stop fobbing you off.

I went to my Cardiologist today and you were correct they will not believe that the beta blocker caused all these problems. Told me the meds are completely out of your system so its no way you can be experiencing all this. Even after I tried to explain that other people are going through this. They even had the nerve to drug test me and when they didnt find any thing they tried to laugh it off like it was funny. Then gone say its protocol but i have had several visits and never have a drug test been protocol. After telling both doctors they still could not understand. No I have to see a gastro specialist. Instead of just saying its the meds and lets work out a plan of action. They just keep sending me to different doctors for what they think it may be instead of realizing beta blockers are poison in the blood stream

I find it quite disturbing that these people we trust to cut us open yet seem to have so little logic.

It isn't that the beta blockers are still in our system, blocking the beta receptors of our Autonomic Nervous System, its that the disrupted Autonomic Nervous System doesn't always reset itself, doesn't regain its equilibrium after such interference in what is a very delicate system that can be knocked out of balance by things far less devastating to it than beta blockers.

that is exactly the problem. I've been waiting 15 months for the reset. I'm better, but still off everyday.

Thank you for you reply. I am really struggling with the anxiety and jitters at the moment it seems to be with me nearly all day. The doctor as given me some anti depressant but then I will have to wean off those. How do you cope with you anxiety attacks? At the moment I can only see a very dim light at the end of a long tunnel. I am glad that you are having more good than bad days. What strength of bisoprolol were you on and how long did it take you to come off them and at what rate did you reduce them?

Regards Nannyknitting

Hi I was 2.5 mg and it too me 3 weeks to come off. I first reduced my dose to 1.25 for 7 days then halfed again and the last 7 days halfed again. The first month after stopping I still felt not myself I was very anxious but every week I felt better. To help with the anxiety I try and get a good 8 hours sleep, dont drink coffee anymore and now have lots of water. I know it's awful at the moment but I can say please stick with it. I very nearly went back on the bisoprolol the evening before my holiday as I was having such anxiety. I went to bed thinking I wouldn't be able to go. I woke up the next morning and my palpitations had all gone. That was back in September 4months after stopping the beta blocker. Really hope you start to feel better soon.

Thank you so much for your reply I am coming off very very slowly as the reason I went on them was for palpations. I have been warned that I will get these again but I am hoping that it will not be as severe as I was having them up to 4 hours at a time.

I am drinking loads of water and drinking camomile tea but find I am waking between 4 and 5 every morning. I am also taking Magnesium Citrate which I feel has helped my palps more than the bisoprolol did. I am going to try Tulsi tea tonite which is also supposed aid calmness.

I would just like to thank you for your support its sad but I think it helps to know someone else has been through what I am going through and come out the other end.

I might try the camomile tea and take some magnesium tablets myself as it may help with my palpitations. I do still get them but nothing like I did before. Just feel some people are very sensitive to this awful drug. My own doctor didnt put on this drug as it was when I was in the hospital. For my own doctor not to be happy me taking this drug says something about the tablet. I think the medical profession dont do enough tests before prescribing the tablet. Please keep me updated of how you are getting on. I honestly can say you will start to feel better it just takes time for the drug to eventually get out of your body.

im the same way ive was taking inderal for a month 40mg a day and quit cold turkey which today i turned 5 weeks my anxiety is still there but not as bad as before hoping i feel better soon

Hi frances73096

I am sorry you are suffering anxiety symptoms I know exactly what you feel like. I have been drinking both camomile tea and tulsi herbal tea which I think has helped a little but I am still a long way off stopping this nightmare tablet. I dont know what it feels like to have a normal day and the withdrawal of the tablet awakes me every morning at about 4am so I am constatntly tired. (I have heard from other people that this early morning wake up call also affected them while coming off bisoprolol.

I hope you feel better soon and are able to get back to a normal life.

The first week was horrible i couldnt sit still i had crying spells and felt hopeless no appetite so forth and loose stools shaking and itchyness .....by the second week i noticed i got my appetite back but the anxiety was still there with a heavy chest feeling and butterflys in my stomach after 3 weeks the heavy chest feeling uplifted and only had anxiety lingered with the loose stools in the morning ...... it comes in waves its weird and i do stress alot easier then before for any little comment or thought its weird but going on 5 weeks i feel a bit more better even though i still have my bad days im trying and pushing through ..... i can say that i was mediatating at the beginning which was helping me but for some weird reason anxiety became a snowball affect and i lost focus but im been trying again and i feel relaxed when i do ...... I use the headspace app

Thank you so much for your reply. You give me hope that although mine is going to be a much longer withdrawal period I will see a light at the end of the tunnel. I can relate to the loose and more frequent stools crying and my appetite seems to be returning. I always feel very rough in the mornings until the tablet starts to work so I know what I am feeling is the withdrawal but as the day goes on I do have times when I feel better and by evening I feel something like normal for a few hours. The anxiety I will try the headspace app but like you self I start with breathing and relaxing exercises etc but my mind wanders.

Keep up the good work and progress and thank you for you for answering my questions its sad but it does help to know that other people are going through the same symptoms as myself and coming out the other end.