Are you supposed to tirate down with verapamil or just stop?

Medication 💊 Calcium Channel Blockers
1

I have a call into my doc, but knew I could get a faster answer here! So it’s a race of my fellow MAVers against my dr!! Woohoo!!

I added verapamil to my cocktail of drugs on apr 09 and since have been experiencing some scary tightness in the left side of my chest so I’m thinking it’s the verapamil. I’m thinking mr dr will probably tell me to go off, but I am wondering if you can suddenly stop verapamil or do you have to tirate down like other drugs.

If I don’t hear back from him soon, I will just take it soon because I’m scared to just stop it. I’m already feeling bad as it is so I don’t want to take any chances.

The race is on…

Thanks

2

Sorry the verapamil didn’t work out for you. When I stopped verapamil I was taking 240mg. I went to 180 mg for 5 days and then 120 m for 5 days and then stopped it. I think 120 is the starting dose for the general population so it is safe to just stop at that dose. I had no issues getting off this med.
Good luck!
Christine

3

Thanks Christine. I’m not even sure that it’s not working as its only been a week. I’m not ever sure if it’s what causing th chest tightness. I also take Effexor but the chest pain didn’t start till verapamil. That’s what’s so unfortunate and discouraging about this whole thing. I didn’t here from my dr today so I just took my full dose of 240mg till I hear from him.

Did Verapamil work for you? Did it improve anything? Did you have any side effects?

4

Unfortunately the verapamil didn’t do anything for me. I had zero side effects and found it very easy to tolerate… except the size of the pills I hated to swallow. I think I read somewhere about someone having chest symptoms with verapamil and their doctor had them stop it immediately, but of course check with your doctor first. Can you have him paged tonight to ask? I did this a few times when I was freaking out about a symptom or side effect and they called right back and I found it very helpful. I mean, this does sound serious and probably the on-call doctor can advise you just as well even if it is not your doctor.

5

That’s a good idea. I will do that. I already took the pill. I guess I should’ve waited.

Thanks again.