Hi. I am 43 yrs old and have been on beta blockers (initially metoprolol and then bisoprolol) for svt the last ten years. I had an ablation which went wrong and I ended up on higher doses of beta blocker after that (8yrs ago). They added in flecainide a year ago as they wanted to drop my bisoprolol down becacause I was still having daily runs and my BP was a bit on the low side. I have managed to drop the dose down to 1.25 bd over the last few months. Then 4 weeks ago, I started to have awful episodes of ?different kind of arrhythmia where i would feel very faint and shaky and it would last for a few minutes. Because they then wondered if I was having a ventricular arrhythmia, they stopped the flecainide and halved my bisprolol. However a week ago I had a couple of prolonged svt episodes so they stopped my beta blocker altogether and started me onto something new dronaderone (like amiodarone with less side effects). I was relieved at the thought of finally being off the beta blocker once and for all but all week I have steadily been feeling worse and worse. I know that there is likely to be a withdrawl period but it's been a week now and I can honestly say that I'm more breathless today than I've ever been. Even just sitting at rest. I can't talk or eat without stopping for breath all the time and I have never felt so unwell in all my life. I am aware that I can get marked postural tachycardia and if I so much as walk slowly to another room my rate climbs from 75 to 120 in seconds. Has anyone else experienced such marked side effects after stopping bisoprolol or another beta blocker? I would really appreciate any thoughts. R
I am not certain I can help much as I am not familiar with your heart conditions.
Is your pulse "at rest" 75?
Only mine is around 70/74 at rest and climbs to 115/120 when moving around quickly
I was on amiodarone and bisop and felt breathless and tired much of the time as you do now and was then switched to dronedarone which improved the AF rhythm and made me feel better with hardly any breathlessness. My pulse was 59 for months. I was also on bisop 1.25 * 2 daily. Then for some reason my pulse shot up to 140/150 (for 4/6 weeks)and obviously breathlessness returned, until taken off dronedarone and put on digoxin. This limited the pulse rate to 65ish. Since then breathlessness under control as long as I take regular exercise 4/5 times a week walking.
Unfortunately meds. for one person do not suit another. Think you need to have more discussions with cardiac consultants. There are withdrawal symptoms if you stop medications without treating the symptoms with a replacement.
I have been taking Bisoprolol only around 1 year, the dose 1,25 Mg. I am 10 years younger then you. I was taking it because of short spvt of af episodes from time to time.
I am currently at around a Month and a half since I stopped taking Biso. In that time, on majority of days I felt sicker then ever in my life (compared to before BBs, and compared to awful days while I was on BBs.)
My resting pulse before BBs was 70-80. Then my resting pulse with BBs dropped to 60-ish. A few weeks after stopping BBs, my resting pulse jumped to 100, and it would jump to 130 even if I would walk to the kitchen or bathroom.
The same as you, I could barely talk to people (even for a 30-60 seconds) without getting breathless.
Talking on the phone was impossible. Raising a voice was impossible. Bending down was horrible. Getting up from bed was insanely hard with strange heart rhytms, pain and extreme vertigo.
Also, suddenly after stopping, I started to have insane anxiety attacks from time to time, which I didn't have before (BBs block adrenaline from our body, so our heart, brain and other organs don't have to deal with it. And now, once we stop BBs, our body is confused and doesn't have a clue what to do with all that adrenaline in our body, and then we start to have anxiety and tachycardia.
Also, during BBs, since adrenaline receptors are blocked by BBs, our body creates more and more of those receptors and they become more and more sensitive because they are trying to "find" the adrenaline. Now again, imagine a mess when Beta blockers are gone, and our body have to deal with insane levels of adrenaline, and when we have twice as much receptors than we did before BBs.
Luckily, it seems that over time, our bodies will realize that we have too much adrenaline now, and the body will try to adjust, with lowering the amount of those newly created recpetors, and the body will eventually try to go back to it's homeostasis, how it worked before BBs.)
Now, after around 45 days, it is slightly improving, but it still feels as if I am miles from being "normal" again.
If you have been taking BBs for a few years, it will probably be very, very hard.
Some benzos could help in the first few weeks, to slightly lower tachycardia and anxiety.
Also, drink a lot of water, healthy food, magnesium, sleep a lot if possible.
On days when you will feel good, try to make a few steps around the house.
Good luck, but be prepared that it will probably took a few weeks until you will start to feel somewhat better...
You don't know how grateful I am to hear this. Honestly, thank you so much. As you say, talking on the phone is just not worth it, it's impossible to tell my children what to do (as can't raise my voice/speak quickly) and getting out of bed I have chest pain as well as unbelievable tachycardia just walking to another room (slowly). I think some of us are more sensitive to beta blockade than others and so it's understandable that we will miss the effect more but nonetheless I have never felt so unwell in all my life. I do have some moments through the day when I feel a bit better and I get lulled into a false sense of security, do a bit more (than just sitting- as I'm used to dashing around at 100mph all the time usually!) but then it always comes back to bite me and I feel dreadful again and end up going to bed. I'm anxious to get back to work as soon as I can but I honestly do not see how I could even feel safe to drive there, let alone do a busy long day. I don't think the cardiologists appreciate how awful it makes you feel.
Anyway, thank you so much again. I will persevere. If you can, let me know when you feel back to "normal". Although right now I'll take anything over feeling like I do right now.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I have always had svt since I was young and the ablation I had did not work. Hence why I've been on beta blockers and latterly flecainide ever since. I am on the list for another ablation but at the moment although I am still having runs of svt my main symptoms (I hope!) are related to coming off the bisoprolol and (far less likely) maybe starting the dronaderone (decisions all made by the cardiologists). Yes, I agree we are all different with how we respond to certain medications although that is why patient forums can be so useful as it can be reassuring to hear that others may be having similar problems that you may not have been fully warned about simply because it's very different to know the potential side effects of taking or stopping certain medications but it's a different matter altogether to actually go through it oneself.
No problem, Rachel. I am glad if it will help you.
Anyway, I stopped Bisoprolol because it was causing me strange feeling of being ill all day, I had huge breathing problems, and every 2-3 days I was unable to walk more than 2-3 minutes (while before Bisoprolol, I would walk brisk for 1 hour every day without any problems).
My doctors told me that Bisoprolol shouldn't be doing these problems and "nobody" believed me, more or less. Luckily, I found this one and other forums on internet and suddenly found 100s of people with exactly the same problems.
Then I decided to wean off from Biso, and I have tried to search infos from 100s of other people who have stopped taking BBs.
I have saved some posts from all around the internet on my computer.
Anyway, I hope that it is allowed to post some random answers from the internet here.
Some of the useful replies:
1. Overall, the rebound effect (paradoxical reaction) is the result of the organism's automatic attempts to return to its basal state (homeostasis) after having been altered by the primary effects of drugs. Because a characteristic of living beings is their ability to maintain a constant internal environment by self-adjusting physiological processes, homeostatic mechanisms are present at all levels of biological organisation, from simple cell mechanisms to the most complex mental functions.
Medical scientists have found that the over-production of Adrenal hormones raise the blood pressure and can disrupt the normal beating of the heart. So... most blood pressure medications attempt to block or inhibit adrenal hormones. Unfortunately, this blocking action also blocks the patients energy and negatively effects physical strength, among other side effects.
Quitting toprol is complicated, there is much more than just withdrawal from the drug itself. Toprol suppresses all kinds of processes, like kidney, heart, adrenalin, hormones & many more. It takes them all and puts them in a jar, then puts a lid on it. When you quit taking it, the lid comes off the jar and all these things come out like fireworks going in their own direction, they have forgotten how to communicate with each other & this takes time to relearn. Sorry to say, but people die getting off this drug, do not belittle it and don't expect any emergency room people to understand the problems getting off this drug, the first thing they say is it only takes a few days (they don't know about the jar effect).
It depends on the individual when it comes to completely weaning off the drug. My cardiologist mentioned that some people do take up to 6 months (not wanting to scare you here).
See, your body is now producing more catecholemines (adrenaline and noradrenaline) than normal to compensate for the fact they have been blocked for over a year! The adrenal glands (and the pituitary) take time to find steady state.
2. sorry to hear your suffering from anxiety feelings its been about 6 weeks now since I came off Bisropolol and I can gladly say I no longer have feelings of anxiety I know how you feel it's a horrible. I am no longer out of breath or any heavy feelings in my arms and legs and just that dreaded feeling of doom which I had every day whilst taking that drug.
-- Came off the bisoprolol (for hypertension) and the symptoms mostly resolved after a month or two.
(Yep, runny nose, hayfever symptoms, sinus-like headaches, post nasal drip and a couple of years of trekking to and from ENT appointments. Lots of different meds but nothing worked.)
I think the drugs mess up my hormone metabolisation and, for me, this ends up causing migraine.
-- I was taken off bisoprolol (cardicor) because of horrible side effects and because it made my blood pressure go too low e.g. 81/65 I did not taper though as I was told it was ok because I was on the lowest dose. However I still am not right 3 months later with sweating, (hot flashes in the day and night sweats) sometimes nausea, still low blood pressure and tingling in my hands and feet and sometimes an internal tremor which I think I have discovered is related to dehydration!
I read elsewhere on this board that sometimes it can take months for your body to adjust.
I have improved and sometimes I feel almost “normal” just for a few hours at a time! Does anyone have any experience of this?
3. (8 years on Atenolol): Thanks for your response! Yes, I was really hoping for some input myself, but now that it's been 3-4 months for me, I am doing much better. It was a hellacious couple of weeks, but after about a month or so, I was pretty much back to normal. The high HR and palps stopped after about two to three weeks, and everything just gradually settled from there. My BP is still a bit higher than I'd like.
4. I am a little over a month of being free of Atenolol. Still getting rebounds, not a bad as it was....It messes w/ my vision too. I think it's not a case of getting Atenolol out of one's system as I read so much about online, but your body getting used to being normal again. It screws with so much...I just hope it didn't permanently damage anything, like my thyroid.
5. I was only on BetaBlockers for 3 months before I said I's had enough.. I can hardly imagine trying to get off after a year or years ! I went through enough terror with just that short time. They must be one of the most powerful drugs that the body gets dependent on.. I really thought I would never feel normalcy again.. I really thought it was the "beginning of the end" ..
Thank God I made it through. I guess some people are more sensitive to BB's than others. We here are those unfortunates so good support, patience and persistence is worth their weight in gold.
I have been off for about 3 months and I think I still get episodes of palpitations. But I am confident that I have made it through. This website was a tremendous support for me.. Just knowing I wasn't imagining all of it..
-- This is a bit of an update! I am now very well and all the horrid effects that I was experiencing have all gone away. It took about five months altogether before I felt I was back to my old self!!
6. I have been off the Toprol XL for two months now. I still experience periods of rapid heartbeat and roller coaster blood pressure. I was on only 50 mg a day, and weaned off slowly. I am still having headaches, and visual disturbances. My doctor wants me to go on Amlodipine, a calcium channel blocker, but my online research shows almost as many problems with it as the Toprol.
7. if you want to do a quick comparison, my pulse with the beta blocker was in the region of 62 to 66, when I withdrew, in the first week it was in the region of 100-120, in the second week it went down to the high 90s, and now it's in the mid 80s. I still suffer from the odd spell of palpitations, either due to anxiety or the new drug I'm taking (a calcium channel blocker called Plendil, which has been known to raise the heart rate)
8. I had issues coming off of metoprolol as well ;tapered dosage for 10 days then stopped.Pulse rate, blood pressure shot up very high and a lot of anxiety as well.My cardiologist never told me about withdrawal.He also did not start me on another med;I found out later this was my main issue, not having another med to start on immidately.It took me about 2 months to feel almost normal.
9. I've been off for 2 months and feel more normal now. The first two weeks off it, I felt worse. After that things SLOWLY got better every week. At this point, I still experience frequent symptoms, but much milder I can almost ignore them.
I only took metoprolol for 2 months to slow my heart (my bp is normal) due to a temporary heart event.
When I weaned off to half a pill, every other night, I was more sick the following day after I took the pill.
10. The first 3 months off the meds was extremely difficult and challenging. The progress to getting better is SLOW. But I wanted folks to know that it is possible to get your life back after getting off this med.
11. It took me 6 months to get off of this stuff.I was taking it for 10 years which I was told for MVP.
12. I certainly can't say what'll work for you, but after weaning for about five or six weeks or so, I finally reached a point where I just decided to tough it out cold turkey regardless of the withdrawal symptoms I'd have to endure. It wasn't easy, and I had some absolutely horrible days. I think I went to the ER about five times total throughout the entire ordeal, and two or three of those times occurred after I had gone cold turkey. After about three weeks into the withdrawal period I finally started to feel a bit better. Until then, I could hardly walk a single block without feeling as though I was going to have a heart attack. It wasn't until late into the fourth week that a day finally came when I actually began to feel normal again. This experience was by far the worst 10 weeks of my life, but somehow I managed to pull through. I have to admit that my heart aches for those who're still struggling, though, for I wouldn't wish this sort of thing on anybody. If anything, it actually angers me to no end that many in the medical profession write this off as if it's some sort of a passing problem or a psychological issue.
13. Day 40. Mostly I feel good but this week, my pulse and BP are higher than usual for no apparent reason. My friend the doctor says it could take a month or two to clear the body completely. Is stores in your cells and liver. I'm trying not to panic that trouble is starting again.
14. (Taking BBs 18 Months) Im going through something similar too. i was on memetoprolol for a year and a half. Just a small dose is all I could tolerate. I would stop it for a week and try to get off it then end up getting back on it. Really messed my body up. A month ago I got off it. I still have an adrenaline rush a couple times a day but the biggest annoyance is the fast heart rate when im walking or trying to clean the house. Does that seem normal for the "adjustment" period? Im not sure if ill ever be normal again. Im really losing hope.
15. I've been off of it for months, and my blood pressure is fine. ...but when I was weaning, I never thought I would ever be able to completely get off, and I never thought that I would ever feel normal again. If you can hang in there and let time work for you, it will be worth it...and I honestly don't know if I would have been able to hang in there without this thread. Remember, all of us has been through this, so we understand. You can do this. We're proof that it can be done. At some of my lowest points, I would reread the thread and it made a huge difference.
Rachel, but remember, each of us is different, and each of us have a different health problem.
I hope that you will be successful to. But again, I have read stories from people who didn't have any withdrawal symptoms. Then some people suffered for only 1-2 weeks, while other suffered for 2-6 Months.
And for some, it was just too hard after 2-3 Months and they started to take BBs again, because the pain, tachycardia, anxiety and other problems were too hard and too painful.
Correction, having referred to my personal health record the reason my pulse jumped up to 140/150 may be due to the fact that my Cardiac consultant decided to stop the bisop completely when I started the dronedarone
So when my system was clear of the bisop my pulse raced?
Wow. This is so incredibly helpful. Thank you so very much! You should write a book on it. You have clearly done your research! It's so interesting as the cardiologists who I have spoken with genuinely don't seem to understand that the symptoms can be so utterly disabling. Especially when I"ve only been on 1.25mg bd. Whereas I expected the beta blocker to floor me when I started them and I guess just accepted the side effects although I was revising for important exams at the time and the fatigue was just awful, I did not expect this. However, I have been seen today and nothing else points to the cause of breathlessness other than the explanation of tachycardia and withdrawal. I will keep you posted if anything else comes to light but as you say returning to this thread will make a difference as it already has done today.
I have suffered similar feelings but in my case it has been around 10/11ish in the morning and I put it down to a lack of sugar in the blood and correct it by taking 1/2 glucose tablets (from Boots) as it usually occurs when walking the dog Fortunately this has always corrected the feeling. If at home I usually have a couple of biscuits and a cup of tea or a banana. I am not diabetic and get the sucrose levels checked annually.
Therefore not certain bisop is involved but best check with your consultant
I know its a few months ago you wrote your post but hope you can reply to me. I was also taking Bisoprololat 2.5mg dose. I was feeling depressed (never had before) and decided to reduce the dose to half by cutting the tablet in half. I felt a bit better. Still got chest tightness at times. So decided to cut it to half a half tablet but cutting in again.Ive now stopped and its day 6. My chest is tight and my pulse rate shoots up to about 110 just getting up. My blood pressure is ok around 115/75 as an average. As its been quite a while how do you feel now? How long before you felt more normal again? I really do not want to feel i have to start them again (Im 49 years old) for the rest of my life. Thanks for your interesting posts.
Well, I stopped taking Bisoprolol in December 2015, and I felt horrible (the same as when I was taking it) for the next 4 weeks, only with a slight improvement.
Unable to take deep breaths, breathing was extremely slow, no matter what I was doing, feeling like a have a flu, depression, feeling cold all the time, unable to walk on some days, feeling like I have 80 (and I am in 30's)...
Then after 28 days, my heartrate went to 90-100 all the time while resting, it seems that I needed 4 weeks to clean my body from Bisoprolol.
Since I have paroxysmal tachycardia, the current state where my body was oversensitive to adrenaline, caused me to have a few bad episodes with really high HR that lasted long.
So, I had to go back to BBs again.
Currently I am trying to find a lower, titrated dose of other BBs (not Bisoprolol) which will both lower my HR and which will cause more tolerable side effects.
About you and stopping BBs, each of us have a different condition.
Some of us really shouldn't be stopping BBs, it seems.
I hope that you talked with you doctor, because whatever medical condition you have, it will be worsen for some time after you stop BBs.
But in some cases, it can be really dangerous, remember it.
If your doctor told you that it is ok to stop, some people get better after 1-2 weeks, but some have huge problems for 2-3-4-5-6-12 Months.
Dizziness, feeling extremely anxious until your body readjusts, tachycardia for weeks or months, very high blood pressure, palpitations, etc
Also, majority of the medicine will be out of your body after 1-2 weeks.
But in poor metablizers, it can take much longer (it seems that my body is of that kind).
Also, even when you dump the majority of the drug out of your system, some of it will still be stored in your brains, lungs, heart and all over the body, and it will take Months to completey get rid off it (it will be released slowly from time to time in your blood again).
And the 3rd thing is, even when you remove all the drug from your blood, and later from you heart, brain and lungs and from the whole system, then your body will need to readjust to a new era, without drugs.
Again, that readjusting period lasts for 1-2-4 weeks for some, and 3-6-12 Months for others, based on how long have you been taking the drug, which dosage, how fast your body metabolizes drugs, how sensitive your body is to adrenaline (with or without drugs), how anxious your body and brains are in general.
So, there are tons of factors and it will affect differently each one of us.
But please, one more time, ask your doctor first before stopping Beta blockers.
But, if you are a poor metabolizer, then 1,25 Mg will build in your body, and it will have an effect as 2,50-3,00 Mg for "a normal" person.
Also, for fast metabolizers of drugs, even 5 Mg will feel like 1,25 or 2 Mg for someone else.
From wikipedia about this:
"Drug reaction testing uses a genetic test to predict how a particular person will respond to various prescription and non-prescription medications. It checks for genes that code for specific liver enzymes which activate, deactivate, or are influenced by various drugs.
There are currently four genetic markers commonly tested for: 2D6, 2C9, 2C19, and 1A2.
This testing has been done for some time by drug companies working on new drugs, but is relatively newly available to the general public. Strattera is the first drug to mention the test in the official documentation, although it doesn't specifically recommend that patients get the test before taking the medication.
There are four possible categories for each marker: poor metabolizer, intermediate metabolizer, extensive metabolizer, or ultra-extensive metabolizer. Different testing companies may call these by different names. Extensive metabolizers (that is, people who are extensive metabolizers of a given type) are the most common, and are the type of people for which drugs are designed. Up to 7% of Caucasians are poor metabolizers of drugs metabolized by the CYP2D6 enzyme.[1]
People who cannot metabolize a drug will require a much lower dose than is recommended by the manufacturer, and those who metabolize it quickly may require a higher dose. Some drugs, such as codeine, will not be effective in people without the requisite enzymes to activate them.
People who are poor metabolizers of a drug may overdose while taking less than the recommended dose."
rachel, I don't know when you posted, so this might not be needed, but here goes. I just found out from a doctor that another doctor that okayed me just stopping metaprolol cold turkey was a huge mistake!!! My anxiety got so bad I was scared to death and didn't think I could stand it another day. Now that I know the reason for the anxiety, I am not so panic stricken, and the doctor put me on another blood pressure med that includes an anti-anxiety med. I can already feel some relief, and know that I will feel better each day. I am so relieved to know the source of that terrible, terrible anxiety and muscle cramps, and breathlessness. The new med is Clonidine patch. Good luck.
Sadly, before I took a steriod, my BP and HR were naturally low and my heart rythm was basically even, wonderful gift from God. Only a couple of times a year I would have just a little arythmia lasting less than a couple of seconds. It was one of the few things my health had going for it.
I just started getting off of Atenolol, and it is a nightmare. I was on it for two months due to my adrenal glands being on overdrive due to an adverse event with a steriod. My heart rate and blood pressure went very high for hours during the event and there was possible collateral damage present even after the steroid went out of my system per my cardiologist.
Because the effects lasted past the time, 7 days, when the steriod was supposed to be cleared from my system, and my BP and HR would not resolve itself past that time -- both were unusually high, so I took the beta blocker and it right away lowered both. I was prescribed 12.5 mg, half of the 25 mg tablet. I took that much for about a month and a little over a week, Since I was experiencing more and more profound weakness, I started taking a quarter of the tablet amounting to 6.25 mgs. for the rest of that time which totaled up to the last 12 days. My life was imploding still during that time. Since the pill is not scored, it means that the medicine may not necessarily be evenly distributed throughout the pill (I AM NOT A DOCTOR NOR A PHARMACIST; however, this is what I understand from what a pharmacist told me). And the last quarter pill I took gave me the same effect as though I had taken more than 12.5 mgs. I was extraordinarily weak that day! My doctor told me to get off of the beta blockers. So I have.
My HR is unacceptably high -- resting rate at 79 to 81 BPM. My BP is reasonable even low if I rest for a while like it used to be. My BP is a little above what it used to be after activity -- though at times it can be Stage II hypertensive in the morning now when I get up and try to make breakfast in the morning.
If I could turn back the hands of time, I would never have taken that steroid, and if I had known then what I know now, I would never have gotten on the Atenolol and used Valium or any tranquilizer instead to mitigate the effects of the steroid. In my opinion, the Valium would not have messed with my body like the Atenolol has (again I AM NOT A DOCTOR NOR PHARMACIST).
When I started this, I was underweight as it was, and now I have lost 13 pounds over the last two and half months that I could ill afford. I am a petite person and I burn calories rapidly.
Do you know what is meant by a low metabolizer? I am a cheap drunk, meaning that it doesn't take much to get me drunk. Is this what is meant by a low metabolizer?
Low metablizers is about medicines (I don't know if it is related to alcoholol also. It could be...). It means that genetically some people have more of some enzines which are resonsible for dumping off the medicine out of our system (since majority of medicines are handled by the liver and the same enzymes over and over, from what I have read).
On the other hand, some people have normal levels of that enzymes, and some people have low leves.
The same as with everything in your body/blood. Some people have naturally too much of some blood molecules or some hormones, some people too low etc.
From what I have read, you can't "improve" those liver enzymes. If you are a person with lower amount of those enzymes, you will just need more time to "kill" a single dose of a medicine.
For example, in an average person, a certain drug will need 12 hours to drop from 100% to 50% of concentration in our blood (this is called drug's half life=how much it takes to drop from 100% to 50% of what you took in the first place), while for people with weaker enzymes, a half life for the same drug/dose will be 15, 18, 24 or even 30 hours.
So, for a normal person, if you take a drug today in the morning, by the evening you will have 50% of that drug in your system and only 25% in the next morning, when you'll take a new pill.
If you have a slower metabolism of drugs and if a half life is 24 hours in your system, it means that you will take one pill today in the morning and by the next morning you will still have 50% of today's dose, plus 100% from tomorrow's dose.
Then, on the 3rd day, you will still have 25% of first day's dose, 50% of the 2nd day's dose and 100% from the 3rd day's dose. So, basically, after only 3 days of taking it, you will already have 175% of it in your blood.
While a normal person will have 100% from today, 25% from a day before and only 6% from 2 days agao=131%.
On longer samples (more days), you will accumulate more and more drug in your system (way more than a normal person who's enzymes work better).
That means that after some time that you will really feel as if you are taking 2,5 Mg instead of 1,25 since your body will accumulate all this drug in your organs. Your BP and HR will be lower, but you will suffer from stronger side effects on 1,25 dose than 90% of other people.
The same applies for people who metabolize a drug too fast.
It stays in their system only for 6 hours instead of 12 hours (half life).
So, instead of a drug dropping from 100% to 50% and 25% each 12 hours, they will have 100%=>50% (after 6 hours)=>25% (after 12 hours)=>12,5% (after 18 hours)=6% (after 24 hours).
So, for them, it will "feel" as if they are taking 0,60 Mg of the same drug (and not 1,25), while you will feel as if you are taking 2,50 Mg of the same drug.
(12,5 Mg of Atenolol is like 1,25 Mg of Bisoprolol.
So, 0,60 of Bisoprolol is like 6 Mg of Atenolol.
And 0,30 of Bisoprolol is like 3 Mg of Atenolol.)
About high HR now when you are trying to wean off, I am trying to wean off from my BBs for the 2nd time now in 2 years. This time I am weaning off for 3-4 Months already (like: 0,60 Mg for one Month, then 0,50 for one Month, then 0,40 Mg for one Month, then 0,30 etc), and each time when I drop even from 0,40 to 0,30 Mgs, I have around 2 weeks of hell with resting pulse 85 almost all the time, and every activity (like walking to a store or anything) feels like hell and pulse goes to 110-120 easily.
After some time it goes back to "normal", like resting pulse 70-75, and 85-90 while walking. It means that my body has now adjusted slowly to a lowered dose of medicine.
But then, when I lower for another 0,10 Mg, I am experiencing the same hell again for 2-3 weeks all day long.
I tried to wean off a few Months ago, that time I weaned off from 1,25 of Bisoprolol to 0,30 and then just stopped taking it. I didn't manage to pull it through that time. It was 2 Months of hell with high HR, high BP (which I never had), insane anxiety, sensitivity to sunlight, sensitivity to too loud noises, nausea all the time, dizziness, strange pain in body.
So, I am doing it much more slowly, and it will take 6-9 Months this time this way. It is less painful, but it is still a horrible experience. (I have been taking BBs a dose 1,25 Mg only for 1 and half years now in total, and you see, it is a real hell trying to quit.)
So, about your symptoms, they are perfectly normal. You took a drug for a short time, but it changes our system very fast. But if it will help you, remember that what you are suffering now in your withdrawal is probably 2-3-5 times less than for a person who was taking a drug for 1-2-5-10-20 years, or especially at higher doeses.
Also, it goes in cycles, on some days you will feel good and on some days you will feel bad (both regarding side effects and regarding withdrawal symptoms. They will go in hot and cold cycles. 1 good day, 2 bad days, 2 good days, 2 bad days until good periods will be longer and longer and bad periods shorter and shorter.)
Thank you so much for the explanation and getting back to me. Eventually, I will have to exercise in order to get my heart rate down, but I will not do that until I can sleep the entire night through and wake up with a low resting heart rate for at least seven nights in a row. Right now, I am taking slow walks, Also, I wonder if there is a blood test to determine how much beta block is still left in one's system.