The Fears of High Blood Pressure

hi Joy,

a few years ago i read an artice about high blood pressure in a French medical magazine, it said that as you grow older, the BP rises and it is normal to see higher numbers as you add years to your body.  Exactly what you say.  Since that time I stopped worried about my BP, I am on medication too and I take it daily and once in a blue moon (maybe 1 month) i check it on my BP monitor, but other than that I refuse to worry about it and when my doctor says to me the numbers should be 120/80 OR below (yeah sure) either he doesn't know better or he is good friend with pharma..or both

Hey, good to hear from you....exactly what the people of the great foundation I follow say:  and I posted the info somewhere on all this BP mania...

25-30 yrs ago doctors told paitients their BP should be:  their age plus 100 over 90.....so if someone is 60, then 160/90 is a good pressure for them....this 120/80 crappola has had us suckered in for a long time, it has for me but no more.   J

I guess some doctors does not even know their blood pressure numbers and they are very interested in giving you lots of medications for blood pressure which i think at times do not work.

130/90 sounds good to me....do ou take a BP med too?   I beleive more and more the drug industry has us in a constant state of fear on what our bodies say......have  you been reading my info.    PMR is poly myalgia ???   No choice but steroids....they are known as the best and worst drugs...   I've never tried the beetroot but am on meds but would LOVE to get off.....thinking on that one as I learn more and more on the BP fears....and not fears...

That is interesting. My BP varies enormously, although the diastolic is usually in the 60s, the systolic goes up and down, I have never hit 195 yet though. Usually 115 to 140. 

Since I got my new BP toy I am surprised at how high my friends' BPs are, who are fit and well.

I know that I suffer from 'white coat hypertension', which is why I check it at home.

I have had a 24 bp monitor in the past and that was very interesting.  My bp was pretty normal but as soon as the phone rang, it would shoot off into the stratosphere!

I tried an experiment a couple of days ago and didn't take my 3rd pill until mid afternoon, when, in fact, I don't think I actually needed it.

I'll see what my GP says on Tuesday

I think a lot of people suffer white coat syndrome and often are given drugs that they perhaps did not need or required a lower dose. I do hope that you can dispense with the third pill. I think I am a BP junky I have four machines now! One belonged to my father when he was a medical student and is quite beautiful with lovely boxing, I have never used it though.

Oh, I remember those, from when I was nursing!  Is it a wooden box?  A Sphygmomanometer, they now refer to them as blood pressure machines, sphygmomanometer must be too difficult to say!!

My bp was getting higher because of the steroids I have just stopped taking after 3 years.  I took my last pred 3 weeks ago, so I'll see how things go.  I have excess weight from pred but also from MTX, so that won't be helping my BP

Yes that's it. It has his name engraved on a silver tag on it and the whole thing has a wooden frame that opens up to hold the rest of it. It probably is a museum piece by now. 

I had a let down yesterday my GP phoned up to say my CRP had gone up fourfold and the ESR had doubled. She is new and a junior doctor. She had suggested a reduction to 10mg from 12.5mg when CRP was 5, without a wait on 12.5mg of pred. She is very assertive! I think she was a bit panicked on seeing the blood results.  I had been in a lot of pain recently but thought that happened with lowering the dose. Back on 15mg for a few days now. I am very envious of you taking your last pred. At the moment I wonder if that day will ever come in my case!!

I am still taking MTX though and haven't missed the pred, thank goodness.  Some of the junior doctors can be too assertive sometimes and don't listen to the patient.  I have had that with junior ophthalmologists and it got to the point where one was saying 'we will do this' and the next contradicted him completely, so I asked to see my Consultant so that I could then say Mr so and so says this, they are quiet then.  Otherwise they just say 'I hear what you are saying but....'

Talking of museums, my local cottage hosp has a mini museum in it, with items from the 1970s - yikes!  I started nursing in 1969.

I believe that when people go to doc's office and BP is high (white coat) the doc's talk them into the drugs.....I believe this is very very TRUE...probably what happened with me and what I've been thru....thinking back the doc started me on a diuretic (hydrochlorizide) and it didn't seem to get the BP down low enough, I seemed to be always aiming for that LOW LOW reading, which I believe is unrealistic for sure as we age....

I've cut the amlodipine in 1/2 and since upping magnesium thru the day I'm sure my BP is fine and probably where it needs to be....I'll continue to work with it and see where it all unfolds...

Again the fear of it all and the drug push...  I've said this before and again now, I'm not trusting of the medical world.     

I am not on MTX. How long will you need to take it? Do you think it worked?

I have just read that it has been suggested we could have tax relief to opt out of the NHS! It did not seem very good though, £4,500 for a couple over 75. 

I started working with computers in 1967!! 

The doctors say it is the patients who are not happy if they are not given a bit of paper for drugs. I think they may start cutting back soon with the NHS austerity drive. I get gritty eyes with the pred but cannot get Optrex Actimist on prescription as they count it as a device!! It is a spray, which is a device in the NHS's eyes. Also it is three times more expensive than the normal one they prescribe, perhaps that is why it is classified as a device.

Wondering why you folks take Prednasone.  Thanks goodness I have NEver and deal with OA but my integrative MD here will not consider Pred for OA....and I don't want it anyway.

Grape Seed Extract has been a salvation for me for the last 19 yrs...just a great overall antioxidant that addresses SO MUCH.....I have not been to an eye doc in over 6 yrs....nothing has changed and I'm 76...rely on my supplemenets so much.

Pred is about the only thing that helps suppress the pain of PMR. Before I was diagnosed I was in excruciating pain and I would be in a wheel chair in a carehome by now, at least I can now live a life. It is a wonder drug with side effects! Also you can get something called GCA with which you can go blind and steroids can stop that too. I heard somewhere that twenty five per cent of people that go blind in UK are because of GCA (I am not sure if that figure is true or not) and that figure could be 0% if it were diagnosed and a high amount of steroids given immediately. I think if I have a choice of my sight and steroids against going blind I would choose the steroids! I must admit I do not actually know anyone taking pred for OA, but perhaps some people do.

ptolemy, I will be on MTX for the forseeable future, or, until my body says 'enough is enough'!!  It is helping at the moment though.  I had to stop it recently for a couple of weeks and bythe end of the 2nd week, I was desperate for it because I felt as though I was swallowing razor blades every time I ate anything.  I have Mucous membrane pemphigoid/Cicatricial pemphigoid.

Interesting reading that snippet about tax relief for opting out of the NHS.

MTX does seem to help reduce pred then? Mucous membrane pemphigoid is another auto immune condition, which is interesting. It sounds nasty. My mother had ME, my sister IBS and my niece coeliac, so perhaps there is a genetic link too. None of the male members of the family have anything!!

When taking MTX was first mooted [well, in fact, it was Azathioprine first but I can't ake that] I read all about it and couldn't beleive that it would do anything.  I was taking it alongside Pred until 3 weeks ago, when I took the last Pred tablet.  I hadn't believed it was doing anything at all, until I had to stop taking it about 2 or 3 months ago, when after I had missed the 2nd dose and had that swallowing razor blades sensation.  I was really glad to restart it

In our family, I seem to be the only one with obscure auto immune diseases, everyone seems to have heart problems, although an elderly cousin of mine said that she thinks my paternal grandmother had RA but I haven't been able to find out anything else........yet!

There seems to be a lot of autoimmune diseases around nowadays. Perhaps we are all stressed out, I am sure that is what triggered my PMR, although I may be wrong.

Do the doctors have any idea how long you need to carry on with MTX? I suppose it does not matter taking it on the other hand, unlike pred.

I think you're right about the stress.  And no time limit as such, has been mentioned about the MTX but it is long term, in theory until the MMP settles down and no new blisters form but, at the moment, that isn't happening.  Apparently, it doesn't tend to go into remission.  It is probably more likely that my body will decide when it has had enough of it!

Sorry, I meant my previous reply to be to Mrs Mop. Mushy brain problem!!