Atenolol and PVCs.

[kaylamt]

I was prescribed atenolol for my PVCs back in July. A little about my PVCs (skip to the next paragraph for the actual question) I was having anywhere from a couple a day (which was rare towards the end) and up to 500. I've been dealing with PVCs for almost a year now. They started last December. I had a period around late winter. Where I didn't have any for a month or two. Then honestly i started worried about them and they've been back since. Prior to this year i NEVER had problems with PVCs! Ever! Except very very rarely id feel them at night for just a couple minute then they'd vanish. I didn't know what they were and honestly I didn't care back then because I knew they always went away.

My question is why has my atenolol seemed to have stopped working? I've been on the medication for about Three months now and it worked like a charmed! Anywhere from 0 to at MOST 20 or so. On average I think I'd feel about 3 a day which is manageable. Now they are upping their frequency. The atenolol is still controlling heart rate and blood pressure so I know it's actually affecting me just not the PVCs anymore. My dad thinks it may be just a period where my hearts acting up and it'll go back to normal. I hope he's right, but he's also not a doctor! I've had to up my dosage once already. For one month I took half a pill twice a day. And then it wasn't working as well so we went up to one pill twice a day. 25 mg. what can be done if anything can be done?

[itdood]

perhaps it wasn't the med, just the natural fluctuation in symptoms?  in other words, the PVC flare up or symptoms went away just as you went on the medication (by chance) so you attributed it to the medication (but it wasn't related).    They are flared back up on their own and the medication never worked.

or

You need to increase the dose of the medication as your body will develop a tolerance, or adapt to, the presence of the medication so that you would need to take more over time for it to stay effective

In my humble opinion, take it for what it's worth, beta blockers are useless for benign PVCs in a structurally normal heart.   It's the only tool doctors have, I don't even know how the tradition got started because it's off-label.  There are 0, and I mean zero, studies to show that beta blockade can help reduce benign ventricular ectopy.

This also fits my own personal experience.  I had a major flare back in 2009, 6,000 PVCs per day (casual rare PVCs my entire life up to that point).  We tried several different types of BBs, and CCBs, and they all made it worse for me.  I stopped the meds, my flare eventually resolved.  I still flare from time to time.  I don't understand it and it *****.

[kaylamt]

I never actually thought about it just being a coincidence. I assumed the medication worked for me because it did for my mom and a girl I know. I feel like the medication truly did help me but who knows! Hopefully it's just a stage . The only thing that keeps me going is knowing that eventually they'll get better.