Important Information About Digoxin

• Digoxin is in a group of drugs called antiarrhythmics. It works by affecting the sodium pump in your body. Lanoxin blocks the sodium pump, that causes Na to move out of the cells and potassium to maneuver into cells. This affects your cardiac rhythm, will increase your heart strength and removes excess water from your body.
• Digoxin is a Cardiotonic glycoside derived from the leaves of a digitalis plant. Digoxin helps make the heart beat stronger and with a more regular rhythm.It is used to treat mild to moderate heart failure in adults atrial fibrillation, and heart failure in children.
• You should not use Lanoxin (Digoxin) if you’ve got ventricular fibrillation (a cardiac rhythm disorder of the ventricles, or lower chambers of the heart that enable blood to flow out of the heart).

Side Effects 

• Common side effects include nausea, vomiting diarrhea, dizziness, skin rash, headache, and mental changes.While Serious side effects associated with digoxin include heart block, rapid heartbeat, and slow heart rate.Digoxin has also been associated with visual disturbance (blurred or yellow vision), abdominal pain, and breast enlargement.

• Digoxin may cause a severe allergic reaction Like hives, swelling of your face, lips, or tongue, skin rash, trouble breathing, itching.Do Not take this drug again if you’ve ever had an allergic reaction to it.

Dose

• Recommended Oral Loading Dose of Digoxin is 20-45mcg/kg for children age 5-10 Years While For Adults and Children Over 10 Years is 10-15mcg/kg.(Take half of the loading dose first, and then take half of the remaining dose 6–8 hours later. Take the rest of the dose 6–8 hours after that.)Then Starting Maintenance dose for Adults and Pediatric Over 10 years is 3.4-5.1 mcg/kg. The maintenance dose is individualized. It’s based on age, current medical conditions, weight, kidney function, and other drugs.

Precautions

• Digoxin can’t be used if you have ventricular fibrillation, Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, sinus node disease And AV Block, the risk of ventricular arrhythmias during electrical cardioversion, people with preserved left ventricular systolic function, for people with a heart attack, Kidney Diseases, Thyroid Problems and Electrolyte imbalance.