Update - 7th day with zero Toprol. Feel just awful... Breathing...

Hang in there Vanessa-- I am on my 4th week without bp medicine and I agree it is one of the worst experiences I have had. I never thought it would take this long to get out of my system. I too had the trouble breathing, bp spikes and discouragement. One day I would think it was all done only to have a relapse the next day. You know your body and you have to listen to it. The dr.'s dole out so much medicine they have no clue what short and long term effects are. My doc said it would be out of my system in 3 days and the pharmacist last week said 7-10 days.... no one knows. It's scary. My doc had switched me to atenolol and because I didn't realize how long it took for metoprolol/toprol to get out of my system I ended up thinking atenolol wasn't working either. Hang in there...it will get better but you have to relax and trust me I know that's hard. When I started to freak then my breathing got wose and bp spiked.

One more thing...I don't know if you are a praying person who believes in God but one of the biggest things that helped my mind was reading Psalms. Read Psalms 91 and change all the pronouns to me and I...it makes it personal and it comforted me when nothing else would. Write it out on paper and keep it close! (I have it already done, if you want me to send it to you) Sometimes at night when I couldn't sleep, I would just hold the bible close to me and most times I would fall asleep.

I am trying to wean off toprol too. I was on 25 mg for four years and I felt it caused heart palpitations the whole time as I did not have them before. I am having some labored breathing since I've tried to wean. I was thinking there is something really wrong but maybe it's the toprol withdrawal. I think so. My BP is great now on a diuretic so I guess I will continue with the weaning . I hope I can get off and you too. Good luck . : )