Question: I am 70 years old and for a long while I have been taking Tenormin 50mg once a day and Isoptin 180SR also once a day. Last Thursday my Doctor deleted those and changed the medication to Karvezide 150/12.5 which I started to take yesterday and today after lunch, my heart felt very strange because it spasmodically started to slow down and quickly start up again and this continued for about an hour after which I decided to lie down and went to sleep for an hour (also a slight headache) and I found this very frightening. Should I stop taking the Karvezide and go back onto my old medication which did not cause this problem. I will not be able to see my Doctor until Monday afternoon. Tomorrow is Sunday. I would appreciate your opinion.

I did reply to your questions shortly after I received your answer and request for more information. Please did you receive this information.

Thank you for your reply. I did suffer the same side effects again today (Sunday) but not as severe as yesterday. I do have an appointment to see my Doctor again tomorrow to get my annual Flu Vax shot and will be asking him if I can go back to what I was taking before prescribing the new Karvezide Medication as it was not causing me any problems or certainly not what I suffered yesterday and today. I note your advice to take a small dose (12.5 mg or 1/4 of the tablet) unless the heart rate is below 60 bpm. That shouldn't be a problem because yesterday the Blood Pressure varied from 126/75 @ 97 bpm to 167/97 @ 80 bpm between 3:00 pm and 8:15 pm after which it went back into the normal range of 132/84 @ 80 bpm. One reading at 3:10 pm was at 107 bpm! As you can see, the problem has caused the Heart Rate to increase rather than decrease. Thank you for your valuable advice. Regards, XXXX