digoxin and Vertigo

Topics: Adult; Aged; Clinical Trials as Topic; Digoxin; Drug Combinations; Drug Evaluation; Feeding and Eating Disorders; Female; Headache; Heart Failure; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Nausea; Vertigo; Vision Disorders; Vomiting

Topics: Aged; Amlodipine; Atrial Fibrillation; Digoxin; Female; Graves Disease; Humans; Hypertension, Pulmonary; Methimazole; Recurrence; Syncope; Treatment Outcome; Vertigo

Topics: Accidental Falls; Accidents; Aged; Digoxin; Female; Humans; Long-Term Care; Male; Middle Aged; Monitoring, Physiologic; Vertigo

In 1148 cases the serum digoxin concentration (SDC) was correlated with the extracardiac signs of digitalis intoxication. There is a considerably overlap of SDC levels of patients with and without extracardiac signs of toxicity even though the mean SDC's of these two groups differ significantly. An increasing percentage of clinical intoxicated patients with increasing SDC levels was found at digoxin concentrations of 2.0 ng/ml and higher. At lower SDC levels patients with and without extracardiac signs of digitalis intoxication did not differ significantly in their mean SDC but in mean age and in mean creatinine concentration indicating that at least part of the symptoms in these patients might be due to a more severe illness. We could show that many of the extracardiac signs of digitalis intoxication are also seen in patients with impaired kidney function at low SDC levels and may lead to a wrong diagnosis. The most common complaint in patients with SDC's of 2.0 ng/ml and more is nausea (39.4%), followed by tiredness (30.4%), dizzyness (23.7%), vomiting (23.1%), headache (16.0%), visual disturbances (13,5%), colour (yellow) seeing (6;7%), diarrhea (4.2%) and severe neuro-psychiatric disturbances (3.8%). In patients with digitalis-induced arrhythmias the sequence of symptoms is the same only with a somewhat higher percentage rate. Only about one half of the patients with digitalis-induced arrhythmias and SDC values up to 2.5 ng/ml showed also extracardiac signs of intoxication. Therefore these signs are not to be taken as early symptoms of digitalis intoxication. Divided into subgroups (patients with/without digitalis-induced arrhythmias, patients with SDC values of more/less than 2.0 ng/ml) the patients with and without extracardiac signs of digitalis toxicity are compared with each other in regard to: mean body height and weight, concentration of digoxin, potassium and creatinine, digoxin dosage and mean age. The greatest differences were found between patients with combined cardiac and extracardiac signs of intoxication and patients with neither cardiac nor extracardiac signs of intoxication: These intoxicated patients are of significantly higher mean age and lower body weight, their mean concentration of digoxin and creatinine and the digoxin dosage administered are significantly greater, but there is no significant difference in potassium concentration. An important group of patients, namely the elderly with impaired kidney function, are especially p

Topics: Age Factors; Creatinine; Diarrhea; Digoxin; Electrocardiography; Fatigue; Headache; Humans; Nausea; Vertigo; Vision Disorders; Vomiting

Topics: Aged; Arrhythmias, Cardiac; Atrial Fibrillation; Atrial Flutter; Digoxin; Female; Humans; Vertigo

Topics: Adrenergic Agents; Arrhythmias, Cardiac; Atrial Fibrillation; Digitalis; Digoxin; Electrocardiography; Ethanolamines; Geriatrics; Heart Block; Heart Failure; Hypotension; Myocardial Infarction; Nausea; Paresthesia; Sympatholytics; Toxicology; Vertigo; Vomiting