FDA Approved Multaq may help Runners with Heart Rhythm Disorder

    

    What happens if you’re a lifelong runner who suddenly develops a heart rhythm disorder?  For me it has been a rollcoaster ride with a variety of treatments and medications.

     It’s difficult to run when your heart is in cardiac arrhythmia, more commonly know as artrial fibrillation. So what are the choices when you’ve tried just about everything else?  Now comes a new drug called “multaq” which has only hit the consumer market a few weeks ago.

I’ve been asked by my doctor to try this new medication and wanted to know if anyone out there knows more than what I’ve found on the internet.

FDA Approves Multaq to Treat Heart Rhythm Disorder

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Multaq tablets (dronedarone) to help maintain normal heart rhythms in patients with a history of atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter (heart rhythm disorders). The drug is approved to be used in patients whose hearts have returned to normal rhythm or who will undergo drug or electric-shock treatment to restore a normal heart beat.

Multaq may cause critical adverse reactions, including death, in patients with recent severe heart failure. The drug’s label will contain a boxed warning, the FDA’s strongest warning, cautioning that the drug should=2 0not be used in severe heart failure patients.

“Multaq represents a therapeutic innovation for treatment of the heart rhythm disorder of atrial fibrillation,” said Norman Stockbridge, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Division of Cardiovascular and Renal Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

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