Blood pressure.

Are you able to get out and about much? I've had several friends who reduced their blood pressure without any meds just by exercising daily and changing some things in their diets. If it's dangerously high then you obviously need meds but if its just on the high side then its always best to go the natural root first with no side effects

I started on Almopidine and my feet and legs swelled dreadfully. GO warned me of swelling but said that because of economics they had to start with this medication.

I returned to GP and was prescribed Lercandipine (sp). Swelling disappeared very quickly. Go see your GP again.

Thankyou x

Hello I have just joined this site ?Blood pressure tabs make me ill, my doctor says I have a 1 in 5 chance of a heart attack or stroke. I have tried Rampiril , horrendous cough, bought me to my knees,
losartan, breathless and muscle pain and now lercanidipidine .
The problem is breathlessness, and last monday he asked me to double the dose and I really thought I would have a heart attack and a visit to A&E I could hardly breathe and my whole chest felt like it would explode , couldnt talk this was only after two days on new dose, I went back to just one tablet and this feeling gradually got easier , but I am still out of breath walking etc.
I feel like I should stop taking them because a month agonI was in good health and now my quality of life is terrible.
I have an appointment on Monday.
Has anyone else felt like this

,

Hi, I’m new to this forum. I was diagnosed with high blood pressure about a year ago, and tried loads of different medications, all had bad side effects , mainly dizziness which affects my balance badly, so much that I have been unable to drive or go dancing. I wonder if anyone has been affected by rosacea, which I seemed to have developed. It’s affected my eyes which are very sore and itchy. My doctor says he can’t diagnose rosacea, as my redness flares up at night and has died down when I see him in the day time. I don’t know what to use for it. My face gets very red on my cheeks and nose it looks as if I have been sunbathing and my eyes feel as though I can hardly open them. I would be so grateful for any advice.

At the moment mine is 108/65------lowish but I'm okay. Last week it had a high spasm. It's up and down like a fiddlers elbow pretty erratic and unstable at the minute. It all depends whether my kidneys are playing up as up until yesterday my right foot was swollen but it's gone down a lot today. BP and CKD go together as when I have a build-up of excess water my BP rises and I can usually tell in myself when this happens because I never feel at my best.

It is best you control you Blood pressure naturally, once your body gets use to such medication than it will stick with you for a long time, blood pressure comes with their own side effect and to my horror a recent test done by and online pharmacy Valisure, blood pressure pills, which contains valsartan, losartan and irbesartan impose cancer risk.
Source - www.myhealthyclick.com/pharmacy-tests-find-another-cancer-causing-compound-in-blood-pressure-medications/

Ramapril made me cough hideously - now on Losartin. I think taking ones own BP is v useful. I wish someone had told me - it was only by luck I realised what was causing the cough.

Humptydumpty in my case it seems to be hereditary both my parents having had high life long bp. I've always had a healthy lifestyle when I mentioned it to the nurse checking my bp she said if I hadn't I could have been even worse that I am now.

Bopeep lucky for me I do not have high BP, but had a friend whose BP was larmingly high - as well as taking ACE inhibitors, he has drastically reduced his alcohol consumption and goes swimming frequently, and it is now a very healthy level; have you tried these lifestyle changes? then you might be able to reduce your medication and hence side-effects?

Had a GP appointment today and saw a very sympathetic doctor. She agreed that the heart racing palpitations caused by the 10mg amlodipine were unacceptable so she put me back on the 5mg plus a diuretic , (I'm also taking an ACE). Will monitor my bp myself than report back in a month. Feeling more relaxed about it all.

BP medication is very hit and miss. A lot of the brands didn't agree with me at all and I could feel/sense my body rejecting them. I took candesartan for years until I finally realised that they were doing more harm than good and my bp was rock bottom with just about an audible pulse. I phoned the GP who'd advised reducing the dose but I wasn't having any and told her that I was taking it upon myself to stop them before they finished me off.
I was just about functioning and didn't like it as it became an effort to put one foot before the other.
As if by magic my once 200/180 bp levelled itself and now with just bisoprolol tends to be on the low side but at least I feel human.

Just found this post about bp. I've recently been put on Amlodipine 5mg (I'm already taking an ACE) which gave me palpitations and hot flushes. Was told not to worry and to be fair they did go after the first couple of weeks. Recently it was upped to 10mg and the palpitations became unacceptable plus I had stomach symptoms. Went back to the 5mg but need to see the GP soon for a repeat prescription and they certainly won't be happy with me lowering the dosage. They will have to try me on something else.

What about other methods of reducing your BP. I refused meds as didnt fancy the side effects. My GP said to lower salt intake, lose weight and/or cut caffeine.
I decided the easiest was the caffeine route and changed to herbal teas immediately, drank no regular tea or coffee for 3 months and my BP returned to normal. Might be worth a try.

Don't even think about attempting to self medicate with meds from the internet , you could be buying any sort of unknown chemicals.
I take 7different types of bp medicine and it took my gp and the renal unit together a total of 4 years to find a combo that suits me. I had bad side effects from almost every type I tried , including swollen ankles and had coughs and sore tnroats.I
Every patient is different and will need their meds tailor made to themselves.

I've had high BP since I was 40 and have taken many things. I find the old meds are best and take beta blocker.
One med gave me a sore throat and laryngitis and the Ear/Nose/throat doc said he was fed up with the prescription of new meds for BP as he always got to sort them out.

If they don’t suit me I take a half and often it is enough.

Definitely talk to your provider. There are a number of different classes of blood pressure medications so you might just need a different class, or a different drug in the same class.

DEFINITELY DO NOT go for decongestants. Anything with phenylephrine or pseudoephedrine isn't safe for people with hypertension because these medications can raise blood pressure. You also have to be very careful with NSAIDs such as naproxen and ibuprofen. These can raise blood pressure as well.

Thanks all still not managed to get an appointment yet, try everyday, i have bought a blood pressure monitor, at least i can keep a check on it myself.

I first read about the Ramipril cough on a GN thread and was so glad I had. DH just coughed loudly and randomly all the time. He was so used to it that he didn't notice it (but we sure did!!) After I told him what you'd said he went to GP who somewhat shamefacedly agreed that it was a known side effect and changed meds. Result! No more irritating cough and I could keep the leg of lamb in the freezer. It was a damn close run thing though!

Blood pressure is a strange thing - I have taken a mixture of meds over the years and at the end of last year was taking a mixture of five. Then in the New Year my blood pressure started to go down a lot and the doctor took away three of the doses. My BP was stable but then started going down again and eventually went too low and for the last three months I have had no meds at all and my BP is about 130/80 which is fine. I do monitor it myself in between visits to GP.
If you take any beta blockers they do tend to make you have an occasional deeper breath - when I went for a check up the heart man told me this was normal on that medication.

I think you should speak to your GP and, if you are still worried, speak to another one. I would not take tablets bought on the internet but it is, of course, up to you.

When I was first diagnosed with high bp, I was put on one of the medications ending with 'piril'. I started having the most dreadful coughing fits, totally out of control, and was sent to the local hospital, chest clinic. The professor in charge put me through a battery of tests, most of which came up pretty clear, and then he told me that he was certain that his first reaction that it was the bp tabs that was causing it. So, he had to order my GP to change this medication and within three months this debilitating cough disappeared. However, the Telimisartin did not really bring down my bp and I became quite worried anytime anyone needed to take it, knowing that I would get a high reading. Eventually, another GP told me to stay with that and also gave me another pill. Together these work magically, my bp is within reasonable rates most of the time and there are no side effects. Took me nearly ten years to reach that point.
As has been said, there are many different bp tabs out there, it does take experiment and time to find the correct ones for each individual.

www.bloodpressureuk.org

‘The side-effects of angiotensin receptor blockers are usually quite mild; the most common being dizziness, headache, or cold or flu-like symptoms’

This quote is from blood pressureuk.org - a very useful and reputable website

OP - I was recently diagnosed and am going through the process of finding what works with minimum side effects. I started on 5mg of Amlodopine but it didn’t control my body enough. However the increase to 10mg caused unacceptable ankle swelling. I’m now back to 5 mg and have had added 2.5mg of Ramipril. The ankles are going down ( can take up to 2 weeks) and the bp is now regularly under 130/80. Ask your doctor to put you on an ACE inhibitor ( like Ramipril) not an ARB ( which is what those drugs ending in -sartan are).