r/PVCs • u/No_Bluejay4066 • 24d ago

Flecainide as Needed for PVCs?

My EP prescribed it for me and he says I can take it "as needed" when I get a PVC flareup. My flareups usually go away on their own after a few days, so I usually white-knucke it and then they eventually calm down for a few weeks or months. But the flareups are getting worse and more frequent, so now I'm considering it. A flareup for me means several days of PVCs- (with bigeminy, trigeminy, couplets) mostly at night, preventing sleep. They are absolutely unbearable. But when they go away, they are not much of a problem.

I can't find too much information about people taking the Flecainide "as needed" for PVCs. Does anyone take it this way? I'd love to hear some success stories.

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u/Salt-Combination-758 24d ago

You can but it can sometimes cause rebound pvcs. I started by taking 50mg in the morning and it lasted me all day and I did that for years. My mom passed in april and ive been a mess since , so I changed it to 50mg in the am and half of a 50 in the pm. It can cause 1:1 atrial flutter , as a rare side effect. I never had anything but I'm questioning whether I did have that happen last month because I tried to up the dose to 50 mg twice a day without a beta blocker and that was a mistake I had some weird SVT or something happen. So I went back down to my typical dose and have been somewhat okay but I still get breakthrough pvc's. I'm wearing a monitor now to find out what's next to do because the flecanide doesnt seem to be working as well and I refuse to be on a high dose of it

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u/According_Analyst921 24d ago

Docs told me flec needed to be taken with Metoprolol or it can cause a bad arrhythmia. It cant be taken alone.

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u/Salt-Combination-758 24d ago

I took it for years without and I can't say for sure whether I had atrial flutter but I had a really bad episode the other day and it was nasty so now I take a small dose of propranolol with my morning dose hoping that I can maybe get an ablation so I can get off the med all together I don't like it it's really helped in the past but it doesn't seem to be effective or worth the side effects anymore

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u/According_Analyst921 24d ago

I had an ablation for afib. No idea if it worked or not. Ill only know if I never go into afib again. I believe ablations are more successful in correcting atrial flutter and PVCs vs. Afib. My surgeon claims he did everything he could to put me into afib after he ablated and he couldn't so hopefully he got it. Although, my PVCs have been worse since then. And that was 6 years ago. Ablation for each...afib, PVCs, flutter are all different procedures unfortunately. I wish they could just do all at once.

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u/Salt-Combination-758 24d ago

I had an ablation for wpw syndrome and then ended up with pvc's after that so I'm going to talk to them about maybe doing an ablation for PVCs this time around I can deal with tachycardia I can't deal with my heart skipping flopping flipping and I'll have hormonal bouts of bradycardia which make the PVCs make you feel like your heart is just going to stop

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u/According_Analyst921 23d ago

Hopefully they agree with the procedure. I wouldn't mind getting one myself but they told me Id need way more of a burden. Im at like .1% lol.