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Letters

Phenindione or warfarin?

Since December 2003 I have been taking digoxin (187.5 mcg) every day for atrial fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm. I have experienced several side-effects, including tiredness and lethargy, especially after food in the evening, a lack of concentration at times and severe visual changes.

I have also been taking phenindione (50 mg), an anticoagulant, for the past four months. The side-effects of this drug include pink-coloured urine, tiredness and lethargy, a worsening of my tinnitus, a loss of taste and swollen, painful joints, especially about the knees. I could change from phenindione to warfarin, but would I be better off? - Christine Harris, Dorset

WDDTY says: Warfarin side-effects include dizziness, breathlessness, tiredness, diarrhoea, fever and skin rash. A wrong dosage can cause haemorrhage somewhere in the body in one out of every 1000 patients - sometimes fatally.

Consult WDDTY vol 15 no 10 for alternative ways to treat atrial fibrillation.

Atrial fibrillation (af): - Last week, a reader wrote in asking for more information about this heart condition that is plaguing her father. He has been prescribed warfarin and d...

Heart drug is wrecking my life - I am a 75-year-old woman who, 10 years ago, was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (an abnormal heart rhythm) and put on digoxin. At that time, I was...

Heart Disease: Drug family is unsuspected cause in 3 per cent of cases - Up to 3 per cent of postmenopausal women could be suffering from life-threatening atrial fibrillation (AF) that’s been caused by a drug they are takin...

Warfarin: bleeding and worse - About a year ago, I was diagnosed with a heart condition called atrial fibrillation and prescribed 40 mg of verapamil three times a day. The heart spe...

Amitral valve prolapse mitral valve prolapse - Q In 2001, my doctor told me that I suffered from mitral-valve prolapse (MVP), and that this heart abnormality was behind the atrial fibrillation with...

Electric shocks don’t cure heart flutter - Electrical cardioversion - where electrical shocks are used to restore normal heart rhythm after atrial fibrillation (AF) or heart flutter - may work...

The latest antidepressants - From our readers - I have been very reluctantly taking warfarin for the past four years in connection with atrial fibrillation. In WDDTY vol 12 no 9, it states that a mu...

Bypass surgery causes heart contractions - Atrial fibrillation the sudden contraction of the heart is common after coronary bypass surgery, researchers have discovered. ...

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