Bisoprolol info & target (?) & a new specialist….

[BenThom-Wood]

Took a call today from the pharmacist at the GP. Briefly discussed the current drugs & told that my allocated centre is one of the largest & best cardiac centres in the country. Perhaps one of the best too. If they say I need to take a certain drug & dosage then they’ll not stop it.

I’m to be wary though of side effects & my body not tolerating the 12.5mg dose. I suspect I’ll be on monthly blood tests too but this hasn’t been confirmed.

Also it seems bisoprolol also makes each heartbeat more effective as it slows the heart rate down. This may bring consequences for me & ramipril regarding my sticky valve.

Then took a call from the cardiac consultant. He & I get on quite well. It seems that a dose of 15mg is possible if my body can tolerate it.

What’s interesting though, is that there’s a specialist who wants to see me. They seem to be interested in why damaged tissue in my heart could be electrically active. That could prove to be very interesting.

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[BenThom-Wood in reply to Hidden]

Thanks, I have edited my post. Any better?

[Alison_L]

That sounds interesting, Ben. You've become a study case

I was only ever on 5mg Biso, and that took my HR below 40, to make my ICD pacemaker take over and help my heart out. I've now switched to Carvedilol as my heart was doing ok by itself. 15mg Biso sounds very high, but I see the max dosage is actually 20mg. Hope it all goes well xx

[Prada47]

Hi Ben

The max I could get up to was 10mg and that slowed Heart Rate down to 33 at night so went back to 7.5mg and been steady on that. Day time HR is between 40 and 50 can't get to max entresto because of HR and BP but seem reasonable stable. Hope it goes well for you .

Regards

[BenThom-Wood]

Things are moving along a little now. I’m invited for an echocardiogram in February to review the sticky leaking aortic valve. Interesting it’s an ordinary echocardiogram, due to the stents I had a transesophageal echocardiogram in Nov 21.

The new specialist is not on call this week so he may call. He’s an electrophysiologist which seems like a good person to talk with.

[BenThom-Wood in reply to BenThom-Wood]

My cardiac consultant has since replied to my email of this morning. The TOE was for looking at the valve specifically so just the ordinary echo will be cool in February.

Due to the leaking valve the heart will be expanding (ramipril designed to lessen this) so eventually open heart surgery will be required.