Have you taken beta blockers?

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I just had "propranolol hydrochloride" for the first time today and it was quite a sensation. When i was tense all the time it was like i was in a bubble of angry air that kept the world at bey. When i took the pill it was like the bubble went away and i could see the world a little better and feel the breeze on my skin a little more, and it was nice. Have any of you taken beta blockers to get through a stressful patch and what was your experience.

Yes. It just calms me down.

did you take them regularly? do you have constant hypertension or anxiety or just intermittent? being calm is not really a "just" thing for me. it's a huge deal i guess.

I take it occasionally, when I am stressed.

I take them for cardiac arrhythmias. There are no notable psychological effects.

you know how the different sides of your heart beat one after another and it creates that uneven THUMP thump, THUMP thump of the normal heart beat. What about when its just thump thump thump thump. I get that sometimes and its like one side of my heart has stopped and the other side is going twice as fast to keep up or something. is that an arrythmia? Also sometimes i am lying in bed and i start vibrating up and down and i think the bed is moving but actually it is my heart beating so strong/fast it is pulsing my whole body. or is that the arrhythmia. I really sound unhealthy when i say things like this.

Yeah, those are cardiac arrhythmias. But I wouldn't worry too much--cardiac arrhythmias are actually pretty common. The kind I have is called "premature ventricular contraction" and they are actually experienced by most people occasionally. They are what's happening when it feels like your heart is "skipping a beat". For me, they just happened often enough for it to become troublesome, and I would occasionally get dizzy; and they happened even when I completely stopped taking all stimulants, including caffeine; so I went to the doctor and got a heart monitor put on for a couple of days, and they saw the abnormal ECG and recommended beta blockers. Since then I only have those skipped-beat sensations occasionally, which seems to be normal, and no longer have problems with dizziness.

If they worry you, talk to the doc at your next checkup and get him/her to figure out whether they are normal glitches or whether they might eventually cause problems.

Yes, I take them always before something that frightens me.

I personally haven't taken beta-blockers but my father has for over 14 years.

In May this year I alerted him to the fact I thought he had suffered a stroke as his speech became slurred. After xrays, scans and eventually a 24 hour heart monitor it was discovered his heart rate was dropping to 30 bpm.

He was told to stop taking them and he feels better again. When I went to the doctor for the results with my father he said "I always thought a slow heart beat was a good thing doctor." She replied " A heart beat approaching zero is not that good" with a smile.

I was briefly prescribed propranolol for a suspected high thyroid condition (but it turned out to be a false positive). It was very calming, but after it week I started to get depressed from it. Apparently, that is a rare side effect, though.

I tried propranolol but it did not help my anxiety in any noticeable way so I am not interested in continuing to take it. I am glad it works for some people though.

i've taken atenolol for over a decade, and it keeps my BP down and it got rid of my essential tremor, but it has some unpleasant side-effects relating to hydraulics. but still i take it. it helps keep me calm in stressful situations.

I'm currently on proponal to treat my shutdowns. They don't stop the shutdown, but they stop me feeling bad about the shutdown.

I took Atenolol for several months and it stopped my PTSD flashback for good. I've been off them for years now, and the flashbacks have not returned. it's believed that by inhibiting adrenaline receptivity in the brain, the brain is able to break the self-perpetuating cycle of chemical imbalances that is part of PTSD and allows the brain to right its own chemistry. This is not a psychotropic effect--beta blockers themselves do not try to change brain chemistry or control/suppress any psychological affect in the brain--but by controlling single endocrine process that influences the brain, it can led to psychological benefits.