Sotolol

[Earledavis]

Today I saw my EP and mentioned to him that following my attendance at the 2014 AFA Patients Day I felt uncomfortable about taking Sotolol.   I have been taking 160mg daily for the past seven years with varying degrees of success.  I have had two ablations and two pacemakers.   He seemed rather miffed that I should question him about the drugs I am taking and said he had never heard of any problems with Sotolol nor any mention of it not being a NICE recommended drug now.  He wanted me to send him the evidence of who the eminent EPs are that attend the conference and where in the NICE guidelines it mentions the use of Sotolol.  However he has put me on Bisopolol 5mg daily and reduced the Dabigatran from 150mg twice daily to 110mg twice daily. Any thought from anyone?

[Hidden]

Good luck with the bisoprolol, I hated that one

[CDreamer]

You can look up the NICE advisory yourself and I am sure you can find the name of the speaker at the conference and personally if I had had that conversation I would be looking for a new EP as he is obviously out of date.  

My understanding is that in lone AF the danger of Sotolol is that is both a beta blocker and a rythm control drug so used to be the drug of choice for AF until it was found that it also can put some people into VF (ventricular fibrillation - which means you would be dead in seconds).  It was a very rare occurrence but a very worrying one.   If you look back to Oct 2013 I think I posted something about this as I spoke to the consultant who argued with NiCE to have it removed as a drug for AF,  I checked with him that I could quote him, he was fine with that.

I also hated Biso and argued against that.  Rather be alive and hating the drugs I took though......

Well done you for standing up for yourself!

[CTG99]

It looks as though NICE have changed the recommendations for when to use it rather than banning its use altogether. There's quite a lot about Sotalol and its use in the AF Association drug information leaflet: atrialfibrillation.org.uk/f...

Caroline