There are many treatments available for atrial fibrillation, but none that I found to last a lifetime. I could’ve tried Afib surgery, but chose the medicine route on the advice of my electrocardiologist after Cardioversion procedure failed to sustain a sinus heart rhythm. If you are looking for afib treatment or considering Tikosyn (Dofetilide is generic), this video will give you a perspective from another fellow patient.
Hello everybody i wanted to share with you my journey in getting converted from afib condition to sinus i looked online i went through a whole bunch of doctors and finally got converted so i just wanted to share that from the perspective of a patient i know there’s a bunch of doctors out there talking mojambo but what does that even mean right so this is a pretty
Straight talk on how i found out and overcame it so the way i found out is this like eight ten years ago i was at a family doctor and they told me that i might have achieved condition back then i was young i had no idea what that even meant so i ignored it and recently last year i got a samsung galaxy watch which had the echd function it’s a form of ekg that
Measures your heartbeat and it kept giving me error saying it’s actually it’s not an error it was telling me i had a fib condition and that i should go see a doctor so there was no way for it to measure my heartbeat correctly because i had a fit condition so that’s where the whole journey started so what causes afib i mean stress bad diet i mean who knows in my
Case i might be genetic but whatever the case afib eventually leads to um heart attack so yeah it’s bad so you want to treat it if you can so i went to go see a cardiovascular specialist and they recommended that i do a cardioversion which is sending electrical pulse kind of like you see on movies or in er you know they go through electrical shock to revive
Somebody in this case they send an electrical shock in sync with the heart rhythm to correct the rhythm so that you can go back to um sinus from afib condition so i went through that and it actually worked i was good for one day so i was so happy that one day and the next day i woke up check my watch again and it said i had a few conditions so i was like oh
Man so called the doctor scheduled an appointment and ended up with a specialist who is a specialist on heart electrical system um and he recommended that uh you know i was still young uh relatively young and that i should try to correct it and recommend that i go through tickerson medication you know i had no idea what that was so having through having gone
Through cardioversion i wanted to avoid doing any kind of surgery in my heart because i mean i don’t know that’s kind of scary so the doctor recommended that i try tickerson it’s a medication and um there’s you know obviously risks associated with it but apparently because i was healthy you know i’m a mountain biker so i was healthy and therefore i was a prime
Candidate for that pill so i was i went back to the blood thinner i was taking eliquis excellent drug by the way liquids i went back to that for 30 days and then i went through to prepare for my tickerson loading it’s interesting tickerson is a formal drug that they give you maximum dose at first and the dosage is 500 micrograms and then they back you off to
250 and 125 and the reason is it’s important so if you go beyond 500 milligrams then it could actually kill you but that’s where they start it’s an interesting drug that they don’t start from low and then gradually build onto the heavier dosage in this case they start with the maximum dosage and then they back off if you have side effects it’s a multi-day it’s
A three day three night plan on spending three nights at the hospital because it’s a three night four day loading process on the first day you get one dose second day you take two doses third day you take two and then fourth day you take one for a total of six doses before you are discharged from the hospital the first thing that they do when you check into the
Hospital is baseline your vitals they take your blood sample make sure that you have adequate electrolytes any mineral deficiencies you know if you do have them in my case they put some iv in me to load me up with some of the missing or low minerals and other things so they correct it before they start loading dickerson which is why they make you come early so
That they can prepare you for the loading and the evening so they take all the baseline ekg the heart you know the weight the temperature you know the whole nine yards you know they measure all that baseline you and then once they correct all the deficiencies in terms of your blood sample uh they give you your first dose so i had my first dose at 7 00 p.m by 11
30 p.m that same night i was converted from afib to sinus condition so on my first pill it worked it’s a magical drug i mean thank pfizer for the r d and coming up with it so that was that was me on my first dose i converted the next three days they were measuring me in terms of ekg monitoring me every two hours taking blood samples every day making sure that
All my vitals were healthy and i was so therefore i started with 500 milligrams and i stayed 500 milligrams all the way through now other patients who might have side effects would back off into 250 or 125 and you know everybody’s unique you know this is my case i’m very healthy so i don’t take any of the medication other than tickerson and eliquids just for
The cardioversion so i didn’t run into any complications but i heard that other people with high blood pressure or taking you know dozens of medications you know they run into a lot of potential issues that needs to be dealt with at the hospital so i’m one of the easy cases that actually worked out really well and i believe the stats were like 60 i fall in the
60 percentile that convert from afib to sinus on the first bill so i happen to be in that happy camper category tomorrow is my last day so tomorrow morning um what happens is i take my last pill at 7 00 a.m and then they discharge me after seeing the doctor at 9 00 am the thing about tickerson is it’s for life in my case i take 500 milligrams twice a day and
It has to be exactly 12 hours apart and there is no double dosing meaning if i take one at 7 00 am and if i mistakenly take another one at 9 00 am then i i could potentially die because it slows the heartbeat or something like that it runs into complication this is one of those drugs where if you miss a dose they’re telling me to skip that dose because if
I’m used to taking 7 a.m and 7pm they don’t want me missing 7am and then taking another pill at for example 9am and then getting back to 7pm schedule which means now i’m overloaded at 7 pm so that could potentially give me into an emergency situation so they would rather have patients skip the dosage if you miss it than to double up or catch up interesting
Drug because all the other drugs i know you know you take it as soon as you remember and then you just follow that schedule this is a life-saving drug at the same time it could be dangerous so you do have to be extremely careful in how you handle the drug as far as the foods go i think i’m okay to take coffee even little caffeine one beer is okay but i don’t
Drink much so uh that shouldn’t be an issue one fruit that i’m not allowed to take is grapefruit because it interferes with tickerson so that’s the one fruit that i enjoy that i am not going to be having anytime soon or for the rest of my life as long as i’m on uh tickerson as far as the drug goes the pharmacy fills 30 days supply which is 60 capsules hopefully
You have insurance because this this is like the 30 day supply is like five six hundred dollars for generic for tickerson brand name for pfizer is eight nine thousand dollars for a 30-day supply thank goodness for generic because i’d be able to get it much cheaper because insurance covers it and they are readily available anywhere you go as long as your local
Pharmacy carries that i think that’s about it if you have any questions leave me a comment i try to answer it obviously i’m not a doctor but i went through the process so you know i went through the same thought process of you know risk management you know is this going to kill me you know is this is this bad drug you know is a side effect not going to be worth
It i i did all that and and then i decided that you know what i only live once um and the reviews were pretty decent so i gave it a shot and i’m i was extremely uh satisfied and surprised that i converted on the first pill so this is not advocating for anybody else to take it what i’m saying is you know i’m just sharing it from a patient’s view and the experience
Versus watching all these videos on doctors explaining all these medical terms like whatever you know whatever right i i don’t know what that means you know all i want is uh sinus condition and that’s what i have so tomorrow’s friday starting tomorrow i’ll be going back on mountain biking trails and enjoying my life you
Transcribed from video
Afib treatment using Tikosyn (Dofetilide) medication By udtrader
