What is digoxin used for?
Digoxin is used to treat heart failure and abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias). It helps the heart work better and it helps control your heart rate.
What is the side effect of digoxin?
Nausea, vomiting, headache, dizziness, loss of appetite, and diarrhea may occur. If any of these effects persist or worsen, tell your doctor or pharmacist promptly.
Why would a patient take digoxin?
Digoxin is a medicine used to treat certain heart problems such as heart failure. Heart failure results when the heart can’t pump blood well enough to supply the body’s needs. If you have heart failure, digoxin can improve your heart’s ability to pump blood. This will often improve symptoms such as shortness of breath.
What kind of drug is digoxin?
Digoxin belongs to the class of medicines called digitalis glycosides. It is used to improve the strength and efficiency of the heart, or to control the rate and rhythm of the heartbeat. This leads to better blood circulation and reduced swelling of the hands and ankles in patients with heart problems.
Is digoxin a high risk medication?
New research suggests that for people who have a particular type of irregular heart rhythm, called atrial fibrillation, taking the drug digoxin may increase the risk of dying by more than 20 percent.
Does digoxin lower BP?
Calcium channel blockers and digoxin (Lanoxin) can lower blood pressure and heart rate to dangerous levels when administered together with metoprolol.
What foods should be avoided when taking digoxin?
Digoxin Interactions with Food and Herbs
- Banana: Avoid eating banana when you are on digoxin as it increases the potassium level in the body.
- Fiber Rich Foods: Foods rich in fiber like wheat bran muffins and psyllium interact with digoxin and reduce the absorption of digoxin from the digestive tract.
Why is digoxin no longer recommended?
The use of digoxin is limited because the drug has a narrow therapeutic index and requires close monitoring. Digoxin can cause many adverse events, is involved in multiple drug interactions, and can result in toxicity. Despite its limitations, however, digoxin has a place in therapy.
Is digoxin a cardiac stimulant?
During heart failure digoxin increases the rate of contraction of heart muscle and the lowers edema. Whereas during arrhythmias it decreases atrioventricular (AV) nodal conduction (i.e. it shows para-sympathomimetic effect) and decreases ventricular rate.
What is a normal heart rate?
The normal pulse for healthy adults ranges from 60 to 100 beats per minute. The pulse rate may fluctuate and increase with exercise, illness, injury, and emotions. Females ages 12 and older, in general, tend to have faster heart rates than do males.
What heart rate is too low for digoxin?
Signs and symptoms of digoxin toxicity are bradycardia (heart rate less than 60), nausea, vomiting, visual changes (halos), and arrhythmias. Cardiotoxicity is a serious adverse effect with ventricular dysrhythmias.
Can you eat bananas while taking digoxin?
People taking digoxin should therefore avoid taking potassium supplements, or eating large quantities of fruit (e.g., bananas), unless directed to do so by their doctor. On the other hand, many people taking digoxin are also taking a diuretic; in these individuals, increased intake of potassium may be needed.
What is the primary use of digoxin?
Digoxin is used for treating adults with mild to moderate congestive heart failure and for treating an atrial fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm. It also is used for increasing myocardial contractility in pediatric patients with heart failure.
What is a fatal dose of digoxin?
The lethal dose of digoxin is considered to be 20-50 times the maintenance dose taken at once. In healthy adults, a dose of less than 5 mg seldom causes severe toxicity, but a dose of more than 10 mg is almost always fatal.
What does the name digoxin mean?
Digoxin is a drug of the cardiac glycoside group . People take it to treat heart failure and irregular heartbeats. Digoxin is available in oral form. Your body absorbs it, and it then travels to your body’s tissues, especially your heart, kidney, and liver.
What is digoxin used for treating?
Digoxin is used to treat congestive heart failure, usually in combination with a diuretic (water pill) and an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor. It is also used to treat a heart rhythm problem called atrial fibrillation.