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Blood pressure wild, GP says reduce pred

Posted , 2 users are following.

noninoni
noninoni

Hi, My blood pressure went up to 175/94 and higher, both last night and this morning, but went back to more or less normal but still fluctuating 2 hours after I took my 2 diuretics and accupril.  I will see my doctor tomorrow but she wants me to reduce pred from 7.5 back to 5, at least till I see her, and take more lasix today.  I also had and still have a headache and increased problems breathing. 

    But I always have problems breathing due to stable but still problematic bird breeders lung disease (from raising pet chickens, geese, etc), so it doesn't worry me that much. (I no longer raise birds- hence the stability).

      I have only been on 7.5 mg pred for about a month and begun on 5 the month before- different from most people.  5 mg helped, but 7.5 mg was really good.  Well, she is a good primary doctor so I will do what she says, but I hope she doesn't keep me on 5mg.  Temporily I don't mind and it does help somewhat.  What would you guys might suggest. Wasn't there something about don't decrease more than 10% at a time?  that would be 6,75mg, not  5 .  But my pills are 5mg.

0 likes, 11 replies

11 Replies

  • EileenH
    EileenH noninoni

    Posted

    If they are plain white tablets you can cut them, in the UK you can also get 1mg tablets. Pharmacies sell pill cutters which makes it easier. You can also take different doses on alternate days to smooth the drop.

    I am on pred, I was at about 15mg when my BP was found to be haywire together with atrial fibrillation and high heart rate. No one said reduce pred - they worked around it. Now I am at a lower dose of pred my BP is also lower but I have yet to summon up the enthusiasm to fiddle with the tablets to find somehting better - not off my own bat I hasten to add, but under instructions from the cardiologist.

    And frankly, good though your PCP may be, if she's going about it that way I think I might like to see a cardiologist. It is the same as with high blood sugars - there is more than one way to control that besides reducing the pred. Because reducing the pred is just going to bring back the pain and stiffness of the PMR - and that has bad effects too.

    • linda17563
      linda17563 EileenH

      Posted

      Would welcome your advice Eileen please....I have uppped my Pred from 5.5mg which I got down to...to 7mg, I became in pain (shoulders etc) and fatigue/stiffness...but it`s still the same, do I keep rising the dose until I`m free of pain, I don`t feel good on steroids, I don`t sleep, and they mess with my head!  I have never tolerated medication very well because of ME/Fibromyalgia.....I have struggled with this for 3 years now...(3month break till relapse)  I will try the Bristol way of reducing when I have it under control, but is there a limit to how long doctors will prescribe preds anyway, I have an appointment next week with my doctor, but would welcome your opinion now please.....
    • EileenH
      EileenH linda17563

      Posted

      Depends on your doctor - mine doesn't worry, if you need pred to control the symptoms you need the pred. Others panic about getting you off pred. If you have side effects really either you learn to live with them or you have to learn to live with the PMR. It may sound hard, but that is the way it is I'm afraid 

      If you have ME/fibro then maybe the doctor needs to try other options alongside the pred so you achieve the best result for each problem. Nefret has fibro and PMR, maybe she can suggest a way round this as I know she is on multiple meds.

  • noninoni
    noninoni

    Posted

    Thank you EileenH!!!! Will let you know what she says tomorrow.
  • noninoni
    noninoni

    Posted

    Hi EileenH, Well, it happened again- I had bought the latest greatest and most expensive Blood Pressure machine recommended by the Univ. of Mich., and it reads too high.  This is the 3rd time I have had to throw away BP machines.!!  Otherwise I am much the same, but I am very happy my BP was OK.

           This is very frustrating- how can I monitor my BP if the machines are so erratic!  Well so.....

           I am now determined to teach myself how to do it manually on myself.  I just want a reliable measure!!  And they all say manual is best.  

           First I ordered a manual BP. 

           Then I wanted   to see if  I could hear the beat with the super cheap stethoscope that I own with the machine I had.  And yes I could, but the machine heard it at a much earlier than my ears did, explaining why it read too high. Ah ha! 

          However I could just barely hear it when I did hear it. So I ordered a somewhat more expensive stethoscope which is said to have better sound.  My heaing is not as good as it was when I was younger, but I am hoping it will be good enough with a somewhat better stethoscope, the least expensive Littman ($45), not the $400 one. 

          The story of why I have a cheap $10 stethoscope is sort of funny.  Last year when I had bradycardia at the hospital, all these interns kept coming in my room wanting to listen to my heart, which had developed into a 4 beat heart instead of a 2 beat heart. Well, I wanted to hear it too.  Why is it so interesting? So I bought the cheap stethoscope and found a youtube site which explains all the heart sounds!!  This was useful as it turns out, but rather astonished the doctors that I had found such a thing on youtube!  I have wanted a better stethoscope ever since.  Anyway, they fixed the 4 beat heart rate with a cardiac ablation by killing the extra pacemaker cells that had developed in my heart in the wrong places. Now I have a nice normal sounding heart that tics along at a good rate, and I am still here, I am glad to say.

    • EileenH
      EileenH noninoni

      Posted

      Do you have an arythmia? If you do some BP machines won't work properly. Pharmacist told us that when we bought ours.
  • noninoni
    noninoni

    Posted

    Hi Eileen again,  thanks for the idea.  I don't think  have arrhythmia- an EKG yesteday showed normal sinus rhythm.  I may have "palpitations" but I am not sure.  I sometimes have "pulsile tinnitus" where I hear my heart beat in my ear.  But this is not often enough to account for all the bad readings.  I sat my healthy son down and took his blood pressure with the machine and the systolic began at 150 and 10 minutes later  was 120.  Can sitting 10 minutes make that much of a difference?  Doesn't seem likely. 
    • noninoni
      noninoni

      Posted

      Hi EileenH again,

          You may wonder if I have a medical background as you do. Well, sort of. I used to do statistics and programming for Parke/Davis and Pfizer for new drug applications, so yes I do, but rather indirectly.     

               Which reminds me, I just heard from a friend that there is  new Pfizer drug for RA called Xeljanz for people for whom methotrexate does not work well.  I have heard people on the forum  complaining about methotrexate, but largely it seems because they cannot have their evening glass of wine!.  That makes me chuckle.

    • EileenH
      EileenH noninoni

      Posted

      Yes! You should really rest quietly for at least 5 to 10 minutes before taking a BP! Repeat measurements aren't always as accurate as they should be either.

      I had a normal sinus rhythm most of the time - but I still had episodes of rather interesting arrhythmia! 

  • noninoni
    noninoni

    Posted

    Unfortunately I was aware of the benefits of sitting for awhile before taking BP, so it still seems like it is the machine.  My son had not been very active when I first took it.  At the GPs we took a manual reading and a reading from my machine very close together when I was sitting, and the difference in systolic was 25 points.  I do hope when I learn to take it myself manually the results will be more consistent and much less erratic.
    • EileenH
      EileenH noninoni

      Posted

      Can't you return these machines as "not fit for purpose"? Or are they sponsored by the manufacturers of antihypertensives?
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