Changed from ramipirl to entersto

[Johnmacc1987]

Hi I am John and new to this site recently my Heart failure symptoms got worse recently had to be admitted to hospital I had to have a icd fitted. on the 30th of October 2017 they changed my ramipril to Entresto. I am getting some side affects and my gp seems to know little about the drug. is everyone being treated with Entresto monitored by a cardiac nurse

[Richard762]

Hi John. I was admitted to hospital at the end of may 2017 and diagnosed with heart failure. I was on 6 different drugs when I left hospital. Ramipril was one of them. I was changed to Entresto at the end of July. I started on the lower dose. This was increased every 4 weeks after checkups with the heart failure nurses. I have had no real side effects. I did feel more able to concentrate during the day and got less tired. I had to have 4 checkups with the nurses before they would let my GP add Entresto to my repeat prescription. The first time I collected it from the chemist the pharmacist asked me if I could have a chat about my condition with him as he had never issued it before. My GP doesn’t like it due to the cost. Hopefully your side effects calm down and you feel better.

[Johnmacc1987 in reply to Richard762]

Thank you for your reply really helped

[laura_dropstitch Heart Star]

Hi John, I've been taking Entresto for very nearly a year now, instead of the Enalapril Maleate I was on previously. I had really awful dizziness at first, but have been lucky not to have had any particular side effects since then. My heart failure liaison nurse saw me quite regularly while my doses were being increased and for a few months after, but has now stopped monitoring me as I've had no issues for such a long time.

In the past my medications have caused quite severe kidney problems so I get my kidney function checked by blood test every three months, just through my GP surgery, but they were doing that before I started on Entresto too and there hasn't been any deterioration in my kidney function since I did start taking it.

I've had no noticeable improvement in heart function (I mean no improvement that has been picked up during exercise test or ultrasound) since I switched to Entresto, but I do think I have been feeling better since I started taking it - a bit more energy in general and less days of feeling really crappy.

Seems like it's one of those drugs that either agrees with you or doesn't from what I've read on here, but I would say it's definitely worth persevering with for a while as I think it has made a big difference to me. Good luck.

[Johnmacc1987 in reply to laura_dropstitch]

This was really helpful thank you