4 medicines, all horrible side effects, advice sought

Derek suggested diuretic for my fluid retention but when I was on the BP medication with a diuretic it caused problems with my potassium levels.

I wonder how you are getting on with your hbp meds and side effects?  I am also running the gambit of trying to find the right meds for me and am keen to hear from people who have had  side effects and eventually found the right combination.  At anyrate I hope you are sorted now.

Currently I am trying Filodipine because Amlodipine gave me tight legs ...I guess eventually they would have swelled too, and although I have been taking lisinopril for a  few years I have the very persistant dry cough, so in two weeks will switch to Losartan.  

I am a 60 year old male & generally in good health. I am fit, active, not overweight & eat a good balanced diet. Following a dizzy spell at work a few years ago I decided to see my GP who diagnosed very high BP. I was immediately prescibed Amoxcillin & took this for a few months with little or no side effects. A follow up visit to the GP revealed that the drug had little effect on my BP readings but I noticed that I was struggling to get into my shoes after my feet & ankles started to swell. I discovered that this swelling was a very common side effect of Amoxcillin & I requested a change of medication. Rampiril followed & after several months I started to develop the Rampiril dry cough. I also experienced some dizziness at the gym when getting up from the floor. Did Rampiril have any effect in reducing my BP? No! I went back to the GP & asked for a new medication without the side effects of the previous medications. I was then given Telmisartan which at first appeared to agree with me. Following a six month check up I saw that my BP had only marginally reduced & I decided that the medications were having no significant impact on my BP.

I really believe that some people have high BP in their genes & my mother & father both suffered. My mother passed at 80 & my father is an active 83 year old. I took stock of my lifestyle & listed all the factors I felt were responsible for my raised BP. Without a doubt stress was the main driver for me & I have made it a priority to reduce the causes of stress in my life. I do eat well but my indirect salt intake is far too high. I have no doubt whatsover that if I can drastically reduce my stress & salt consumption my BP will reduce over time. I am also consuming foods which are known to reduce BP naturally i.e. fish oil suppliments, beetroot, garlic, etc.

I have stopped taking BP medication & the bottom line is...do I feel any better? In my case the answer is a resounding yes. I no longer have heavy, aching stiff limbs, dizziness & general lethargy. I also felt that I had been viewing life behind a blurred lens & everything is now back in sharp focus. I am acutely aware of the fact that I still have higher than 'normal' BP, always did & probably always will. I continue to work at reducing my BP through natural methods & have really 'tuned in' to my body. When I feel my BP rise (in my case stress) I immediately deal with the causes of the stress. I was actually getting stressed worrying about my BP! I no longer do that & I no longer take BP readings every few days.

I would not advise anyone with serious BP issues to do what I have done but I would recommend that you discuss your concerns with your GP. I believe that GP's prescibe the cheapest drugs first when treating BP & if these drugs are not working for you, get them changed! Life is short & quality of life is important to all of us.

I've been using losartan and amlodipine for quite sometime and have been experiencing some of the bad side effects you've mentioned. Due to my ER visit a couple of days ago I was again prescribed another medication, Metoprolol. I've been trying traditional healing as well with out side effects. Please advise which direction I should take to stabilized my hypertension.

I was first diagnosed with hypertension in 1994 where I had my B/P taken in a booth at a fair. That caused me to be rushed to the emergency room where they got it down quickly with Procardia. I followed up on it with my doctor who stopped the Procardia because my ankles swelled up as big a cassava melons. He  tried several medications on me...Ace inhibitors, Calcium channel blockers, water pills all to no avail. They would not bring my pressure down Plus made me feel deathly ill. He explained to me that African Americans usually do well with Ace Inhibitors and Calcium Channel Blockers. Then he went outside the box and gave me a Beta Blocker called Tenoretic(Atenolol by generic name). Surprisingly, it worked. It was controlled and I used it from 1994 to 2014 when he retired and move to another state. I weaned myself off of the remaining pill and remained pill free for 2 1/2 years until this August 2017. This current doctor is starting me at the beginning stage even though I told her that Tenorectic works for me. She said she would never start with that medication. So here I am again, a guinea pig, being experimented on because she will not listen to me. She gave the same text book meds that is supposed to work well for African Americans. It is not working yet she tells me to keep taking it! Is that crazy or what? I feel terrible and she says keep taking it and oh by the way, the Benazepril may give you a cough and raise your potassium levels. So I am now taking my health and life into my hands because I think she must be trying to kill me. lol. Seriously, I take the Calcium Channel Blocker-Narvasc(Amlodipine by generic name) 5mg daily and the Ace Inhibitor- Lotensin(Benazepril HCL by generic name) 40 mg daily,  she D/C'd the Hydrochlorothizide 25mg,(water pill). I have constant a headache, dizziness and lightheadedness, I am coughing, my breathing is shallow, my energy zapped, I have bloating and pain in my abdomen, heart palpitations and muscle weakness. I am in the process of weaning myself off of this before it kills me and will change doctors if I must. I am much older now, 65 to be exact, and my daughter was about to take me to the ER  on several occasions.because I am not myself. I monitor my B/P at home and still with all of this medication get readings of 150-160/90-100. My follow up is the same yet she says keep taking it. It is not that I don't want to be treated, but why not hear me and try what I am saying. There is a medication that works! 

Hi James,

I concur with your findings on adverse reactions.

?Your experience is not unusual because nature intended for your blood pressure to go up and down.

?Weight lifters are known to get up to about 300 mmHg systolic and are very fit.

?So why do they get so fit that a GP tells them they need to be medicated.

?One patient on this site was getting very worked up because she found that her pulse pressure seemed to be going off limits - I had to tell her that may be so but it's one of those measures that GPs don't generally worry about.

?Now

Pulse Pressure = Systolic - Diastolic

?Pulse pressure is a meaningful measure to know and is the blood pressure drop across your heart but it is ambiguous because you can have any number of Systolic/Diastolic pair readings that will give you the same Pulse Pressure. Systolic and Diastolic are important as a pair of readings for the following reasons:

?Systolic is important because it is the pressure relative to atmospheric from your heart so going too high is likely to blow your head off - as astronauts find when there get a helmet leak in space.

?Diastolic is important because it's the pressure relative to atmospheric left in your heart at the end of a heartbeat. This is important because the heart has to supply is own blood so if it goes too low you deprive your heart of its own blood supply through the coronary arteries. This will result in insufficient blood to your heart muscle so your heart will effectively kill itself.

?So the answer is that Systolic , Diastolic and Pulse Pressures are all really stupid things to base your medication on.

?There are several measures that are more important:

?Heart Rate, Blood Oxygen Saturation Level and Breathing Rate (the latter two are co-dependent).

Regards

?Bob