All Stents, All The Time

[zip2play]

Ubie,

No, no anxiety and fast dial up connections at 3:30AM. LOL
The sleep pattern was the same...Sound asleep at midnight and pop awake at 3:15 AM.

I'm fiddling with another possible cause. I had been taking my atenolol about a month and in the morning. Since It's got a 6 hour half-life I thought maybe the near wear-off of beta blockade and a heart rate increase might be waking me at 3.

I've streched it to 3 hours later the last couple days and took yesterday's at 4PM....slept til 5AM this morning...HOORAY! I'll take today's with dinner at 7 and see.

It's not unlikely because I noticed after the first stretch to 27 hours, my heartrate sped up CONSIDERABLY by the end of the period.

If I continue the stuff (in spite of erectile difficulty) I might consider 2 half doses, morning and night!

Anyhoo, I'm 50-50 on this theory and the "extra blood" theory...Lot's will tell when I rejoin the gym February after MD's ok...I can't weight to get the "Weider" body back !

(I really doubted PLAVIX could have much to do with it.)

Another CONCEIVABLE explanation is that the Norvasc that I stopped taking 5 days ago (because of amphetamine mania and instant rages and horrible mood swings) is still affecting me (some of it's metabolites half a half life of 21 days (can you IMAGINE!)

edit: Now that I think really hard on it the Norvasc is looking more like the culprit and every day will bring more sleep....With long lasting metaboolites it takes a VERY long time to get to steady-state plasma level. I took the drug for 3 weeks (never again) and it might take AT LEAST a week to get the lion's share back out! How easy a working theory (atenolol) can be shown as coincidence!!!!

Be well!

[CobaltBlue]

Originally Posted by zip2play

Ubie,

How easy a working theory (atenolol) can be shown as coincidence!!!!

Be well!

I was on atenolol for a while also, prior to it, they had me on Ziac 5/6.25 a combo drug which was fine for me. When I was diagnosed with diabetes, the switch came to Atenolol and voila, ED! I dealt with it for a year and asked to change. The came Toprol XL. No improvement to ED, and loss of libido now. I went back and thankfully from the weight loss, my bp was near 100/60 on the meds. My cardiologist had no problem with me coming off of all beta blockers. I know they are beneficial but the associated "side effects" really sapped out the quality of life.

Its good to see that Norvasc might be causing the problems in your sleeping. That 27 hr effect that you experienced with atenolol might be the rebound effect thats common when you discontinue beta blockers. I was weened off slowly and even at the end then, I had a rebound effect for at least 3 days where my resting heart rate was about 50% than my normal.

[bogie]

Before my bypass the stents didn't give me any trouble. But after the bypass failed(2 months later) the Doc put me back on Plavix. My ankles swell from Plavix. I don't like the idea of taking Plavix, life long. POOP