Blood Pressure lowering

Well I wish you luck and lots of encouragement tanith. I personally know someone who was grossly overweight, had a gastric band fitted, and is now slim and does not have diabetes 2 any more.

I agree tanith that age +100 is out of date. GPs do not make money prescribing medication, they have to stick within a tight budget and are penalised if they overspend. However it is cheaper to prescribe medication than the cost to NHS of patients suffering stroke etc.apart from the personal cost of course. You have done brilliantly well to lose the weight and lower your BP. I was told I was pre diabetic and lost just over a stone - enough to take me out of diabetic risk and as a bonus lower BP.

MargaretX the whole point of me lowering my BP is to stop taking any meds and the Age+100 measurement is out of date, its a fact that the nearer your BP is to lower end of 'normal' range the less likely you are to have heart attack, stroke, heart failure, kidney desease etc etc.
Most people do not want to take medication.

As someone how has really high BP you are all crazy to lowering your BP after having such perfect measurements.

Age + 100 used to be the norm for older people and the pharmacists have got hold of a reason to sell even more pills, the Doctors like to prescribe (and earn as well) and there you are the perfect patient who downs everything.

Anya only diagnosed 2mths ago but my diabetic nurse said I was only just over the line and if I lost some weight it might be reversed which I hope is what will happen, I've let my weight creep up over the last year while awaiting for a hip replacement and that's now scheduled for June but when I got that diagnosis I determined to lose the extra weight plus a bit more to turn things around and help my recovery from surgery. I wasn't expecting my BP to drop so quickly but it has.

Whilst I was in hospital my blood pressure was taken regularly (as is everyone, I think). On coming home from hospital, there was a note from them advising our doctor to withdraw the blood pressure tablets altogether, and check my bp every so often. After a couple of months, no checking was done, so I bought myself a blood pressure device and thought my bp was high, but when I went to the doctor for confirmation, they agreed that it was higher than it used to be, but as we get older higher blood pressure is acceptable. Taking tabs my bp was regularly in the 120/70 range, which was why I was concerned some increase.

How long since you were diagnosed with diabetes?

Thanks, its barely a stone but its made such a difference I just hope what I've cut out of my diet has also helped reduce my blood sugar reading so I can cut those meds too having been started on them 2mths ago. I am determined to reverse my Diabetic diagnosis.

I did read somewhere that the Metformin is taken by yoyo dieters to lose weight not sure if that's true or not.

If it's consistently less than 120/75 talk to your GP. Well done on the weight loss Tanith

My doctor gave me a target of 135/80. After I went into permanent AF, my bp went right down to 115/70 and I felt not very well. He's actually taken me off one of my bp medicines - Amlopidine - and after a few really feeling rotten days, I'm feeling much better now and my bp is around 130/75.

Thanks everyone I have to see the nurse for blood tests in another month so I'll see what she thinks..

They are always moving the goal posts re BP. I was watching a programme yesterday where a nurse was taking someone'e BP and she said '130/80 perfect'. I would have though 80 was high but apparently not.

I would ask the GP for their advice. I was able to cut down from two lots of medication to one after weight loss and giving up smoking.

tanith I personally would wait until the diastolic is under 70 consistently before I did anything.