Alternative drug to Flecainide

[Summerlily]

I have been on Flecainide for two years and had very few Afib episodes .It has been a wonder drug for meI am now told due to the changed structure of my heart I have to change medication

The cardiologist has put me on Bisoprolol which , from past experience , and now , I know just doesn't work for me .It makes my blood pressure too low and my heart beat too slow so I feel constantly tired .

It also does not stop my Afib episodes

Be really interested what medication has worked for other people as an alternative to Flecainide

Thank you

[CDreamer]

None of the medications worked for me, I couldn’t tolerate any of them and Flecainide caused unusual changes but it had stopped working in any case. After 2 ablations and ended with choice of Amiodarone or Pace and Ablate.

My saviour was Pacemaker, CRT implant stopped my AF the moment of implant in 2018 and apart from a few episodes when I had COVID and worse when I had pneumonia, not noticed anything although my Pacemaker reports and my own monitoring say it the AF burden is 2%. I didn’t go ahead with AV node ablation as with the agreement of my EP - seemed little point in having the procedure.

[BobD Volunteer]

Generally speaking if your doctor has decided that the physiology of your heart is compromised then antiarrhythmic drugs are no longer suitable for you. This does sadly leave you wth rate control via either beta blockers like bisoprolol or calcium chanel blocker such as diltiazem.

You may think about other strategies such as ablation or in extremis, pace and ablate

[Hylda2]

I too ended up with pace and ablate after Flecainide stopped working. Have my life back

[Tapanac in reply to Hylda2]

Hi hylda2

How soon after your pacemaker did you have your ablation?

I had an ablation many years ago but unfortunately my afib/tachycardia came back after about a year. I was put on flecainide which I found amazing, but now after 8 years my EP said I’m in permanent afib so stop flecainide. I had a pacemaker (2 leads) last September snd all seemed fine until I contracted covid after the vaccine. Now still offered left sided radio frequency ablation if I was willing to take the risks

So I’m a bit of a quandary at the moment

I’m glad for you that you are good

[Hylda2]

I had a two lead pacemaker fitted September 2022 and an av node ablation November 2022. They subsequently discovered that i too am in permanent AF so one lead was switched off. I am now completely reliant on the pm, but have an escape fraction of 35 should it decide to play up

Di