Have you ever heard of Digoxin?

[wahoozer]

My Mother was given a prescription for Digoxin for her heart failure.
She had been getting very sick, weak and falling down.
We figured out it was since she started taking this drug.

I did some investigating on the internet and found out that the only way to get rid of it
is through you kidneys. Dialysis does not remove it. It could also have been interacting with her other meds.
We called the doctor and asked about it and he took her off of it immediately.

Let me know if anybody else has had any bad or good experiences with this drug.

Wahoozer

[Inara]

Are they checking her Digoxin levels?  Maybe the dose is too high or too low?  It's actually a great drug and does wonders with heart failure.  It makes each beat of the heart more effective. 

Oh, and did they instruct you to check her pulse before giving it?  If it's less than 60 beats per minute, don't let her take it. 

[wahoozer]

No such instructions.

My sister who is an OR nurse said the same thing when she found out that she was taking the drug.

All I know is that we called and asked the doctor about the drug and then he immediately took her off it.
I don't know if he checked her labs or what. You would think he wouldn't just tell her to stop taking it without some other info.

She was in such bad shape that she fell while getting up in a restaurant and cracked her hip.
Spent 2 days in ICU because of very low, unstable heart rate and blood pressure.
Then had hip surgery and 2 more days in ICU.

Now she is in a health care center(aka nursing home) doing rehab.

When we asked the heart doctor in charge in the hospital about the drug and how she was supposed to get rid of it all he could say was that it was a tricky drug. When presses he said it gets absobed by the liver and other organs.