Previously I posted about my eyesight deteriorating around the same time as my daily Flecainide dosage was doubled from 50mg to 100mg a day.
Here's my follow up post for those that are interested and might find it helpful.
I found the rapid deterioration from -3.5 to -4.5 in less than 5 months to be extremely alarming and I consulted an opthalmic surgeon and a different optician than the one who did the original eye test.
Both assured me that the deterioration was within normal range and that they could not detect anything to be concerned with in terms of both my lenses and my retinas - as did my original optician.
The opthalmic surgeon dimissed my questioning of whether Flecainide could be a cause and because if this I didn't bring it up with the second optician - although I did tell him I was taking it - but he didn't react to this.
Fast forward a couple of months, 3 weeks after my ablation and a reduction of Flecainide back to 50mg a day and - you guessed it - eyesight back to what it was!
I went back to my optician today just to check that I "wasn't seeing things" and he is flabbergasted. He has never seen this before and even raised a yellow card as he thinks it must be the Flecainide that is changing my eyesight.
So I'm happy not to be going blind even if I'm £100's out of pocket with 2 new pairs of glasses that I can't use and a private consultation with an opthlamic surgeon that wasn't necessary.
I've arranged a follow up with the optician in a month to see if things have stettled down and I'm almost excited to see what will happen if the ablation is successful enough for me to come off the Flecainide altogether.
Thanks for reading,
Not as SpeccyMagoo as I was
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MisterMagoo
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Sometimes you have to trust your body, not just the doctors. If I had a dollar for every time I was told "I've never seen this before..." -- be it from a doctor or a car mechanic -- I could retire. Oh, wait, I am retired
As with any drug, effects differ between people.It must be a relatively rare effect otherwise my optician would have seen it before and it would generally be more widely reported and known about.
I all other aspects, I have tolerated Flecainide very well.
Thank you for posting and helping flag to others to keep an eye on this, fascinating that coming off it looks to reverse the issue.
A lot of people are concerned to start Flec, So posts like this are important to help flag unusual side effects, dark shadows in peripheral vision seem to be the most common one I've read about.
I have also read long term side effects are that Flec can 'collect' in your eye tissue and damage your lungs - but assume these are rare impacts after years of use.
What an interesting account! Thank you! I find that all of the different makes of Flecainide come with odd side effects (some very odd) and you’ve found another one!! Hope the op has been successful and you no longer need it.
Eyesight problems were the reason that I could never tolerate Flecainide as it gave me tunnel vision about an hour after I took it which was very eerie to experience so what you say does not surprise me in the least!
I was very interested to read your post although I am not on flecainide , I am on Apixaban, Entresto, Dopagliflozin,Digoxin& Bisoprol.
Recently I went for my pre op appointment for an Ablation & I mentioned I was getting blurry eyes , the consultant who was to do the Ablation was not happy to proceed & has referred me back to my Cardiologist ( who I am seeing next week)
My sight has worsened so I went to my optician who I had only seen 3 months ago before my heart issues & he said my reading sight has deteriorated significantly, I rang my heart nurse and she said she d never heard of medication affecting sight , I find this hard to believe?
So pleased your sight has improved, I ll see what my cardiologist has to say
Well I can attest that it certainly looks like certain drugs can affect sight and I'm sure if you googled it you would find many examples. Just because someone hasn't seen an effect themselves doesn't mean that it isn't a thing.
It was really easy for me and my optician to come up with a hypothesis for flecainade affecting my eyesight because I'm only on 2 drugs, only one of them had a change in dose and the effect was pretty soon after the dose change.
More difficult for you to come up with a hypothesis given the number of drugs you are on and I'm afraid the medical profession is not always the best at joining up all the dots, expecially if they have to look outside of their area of expertise.
Hopefully yur cardiologist will be able to give you some good advice. Good luck
I hated being on flecainide. My eyesight deteriorated when I was taking it. I no longer take it, although my AF has now reappeared two years after my ablation.
There are _always_ side effects to drugs, just that some don't show up immediately, and some can be ignored, or are tolerated.
I would be very dubious about going back onto Flecainide at the dose that seemed to affect my sight.
Hopefully my ablation has worked but I dread the scenario in the future where I reject a Flecainide prescription and a subsequent condescending conversation with a cardiac medic ensues.
I had the exact same thing happen to me -- deteriorating eyesight when on Flecainide, with sudden improvement when I got off it. Good news for you, MisterMagoo!
I've had the same experience with my eyesight and flecainide. I haven't visited a doctor about it but what you say matches what I've experienced. I thought I was just getting old. I am taking 2 x 100mg/day. I used to take 2 x 50mg/day. Looking back, when I made the jump I noticed the eye issue but didn't really correlate the two. Thanks for opening my eyes !!
Maybe you should get a sight test. I was told that I was definitely illegal to drive until I got a new sight prescription. I think there should be a warning about this both on the Flecainide packaging and by the person prescribing Flecanaide.
PS. Now I'm illegal to drive on my new sight prescription!
Mr Magoo .....I was on 200mg of Amiodarone for VT and later AF - Amiodarone damaged my Thyroid and was stopped., a also developed bradycardia and my Amiodarone was stopped, but then AF started and I was back on with just 100mg and am still on. Amiodarone may have attacked my chest, a good substance but with risks.
Flecainide does cause problems among them "Blurred Vision" so there may be others, The drugs are rotton but in many cases necessary.
Glad your vision self-restored. I was diagnosed with glaucoma at age 27, 50 years ago. Afib presented itself, undiagnosed, at around the age of 49. For perhaps 10 years, "flec" worked wonder on keeping my afib under control with my cardiologist periodically making sure that I was heart-related stable with it. Concurrently, my ophthalmologist assured me my visual fields were stable.
My first glaucoma surgical intervention, trabeculectomies , was around the age of 36, and was long-term unsuccessful. Meds were also less effective. But I was always assured everything was stable.
While being on flec, about 15 years ago, bi-lateral trabeculectomies were again performed, and remain effective in maintaining very low pressures without meds. However, in spite of continued ophthalmology comments like "little change" regarding fields, they keep slowly deteriorating. So, I never suspected that flec could have been slowly contributing to my vision loss. And, your comments lead me to believe that there are so many variable that, even in my case, it was unlikely.
When the flec stopped working, I was unable to find an effective alternative. New meds, ablations, and some afib-related ER conversions became common place. Finally, getting older and an AV-node ablation, has rendered me "viable" but not nearly as caridio-functional as the good old days on flec.
I’m so interested to hear that you’ve made a connection between taking Flecainide and deteriorating eyesight, as I’ve also been wondering about this. It’s reassuring to have my suspicions backed up. I have also, on a very few occasions, had some spectacular visual disturbances after taking it - which the medics say is ‘very rare’. For me, Flecainide is no longer the wonder drug PIP that it used to be anyway and seems now to cause nearly as many problems as it solves.
I’ve been talking 100mg every 8 hours for the last 4 years and my eyesight hasn’t changed it’s still the same since I started taking the Flecainide all is good, I very much doubt it’s the Flec that’s causing it.
trust me it won’t be the Flecainide, If you told me you was taking Amiodarone then I would definitely agree with you but Flecainide won’t cause you any eye problems
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