Side effects of Tablets

Thank you Colin for this info about Dr Lobo and his team ,I had read some of what he does on his website ! I am glad you are happy with your treatment ,At Harefield they are doing renal denervation which is where they do something to the renal artery and it is meant to help lower BP or allow tablets to be tolerated !My renal artery was not stenosed so that ruled me out ! I think i will ask my Dr if she will refer me to his NHS clinic but i suppose that means a wait and i could do with help now ! I wonder if it is worth my while seeing him privately for one consultation ? I probably would not be suitable for his trials either ! being of the older generation !

Age should be no barrier.

I tried to get on the renal denervation trial at Imperial College and went through a lot ot tests before being told that my BP was not consistently high enough. It did though serve a purpose as they found that I had aortic stenosis and needed a valve replacement.

Age is not the only criterion, there are other considerations as well. as far as suitability for the various trials.  Dr Lobo's secretary is Bibi Warren and her phone number is: 020 7234 2652. She can outline the cost of a first appointment as it usually involves a series of tests as well as a general consultation. Ince going to his NHS clinic at Barts I have had 24 hour monitoring and other investigations I have not received elsewhere though I am sure everyone was doing their bet to help me.

I was told that because my renal artery was normal ,no renal denervation and because it involved a procedure i was happy enough then ! You are lucky Derek that your BP is not high all the time ! It was good that you had the aortic stenosis picked up ! I hope it is under control now ,I suppose an eye needs to be kept on it

Thank you Colin for that info , i did speak to Dr Lobo's secretary , but did not know her name ,and she said a consultation would be around£ 480 as he would do an ECG ,she did seem to be saying it was better to be referred to his NHS cliniic and you lucky to be there now ! i wonder if a one off consultation gets you a bit sooner to the NHS or is there the usual long waiting list ! I will problably have demised by then ! its all worrying when you realise the odds are stacked against you !

For some unknown reason... probably a sinister one.... my BP has dropped and I have not taken a losartan since early December. I no longer take my BP first thing in the morning when it is normally high and wait until about 10am. It has a few peaks that I ignore and it settles down again.

I had a 24 hour monitor the other week but that (probably because of it) was a day when it was high a lot of the time or my AF was building up as the next day my heart was thumping away and I ended up at A&E after calling 111 for advice.

The operation to replace my heart valve is the cause of my AF. A cardioversion put it back into NRS but two other proceures stimulated my vagus nerve and put me back in AF.  

I was told that the renal artery had to be normal before they would do renal denervation!

I think you are right Derek ,i got a bit muddled ! it does have to be normal ,, mine is but i was not offered it , i think it is still in its infancy so may not work ! You are lucky that your BP is behaving and you can do without any tablets ! AF is no fun , so you have had an op for the valve ! maybe the AF will settle on its own ! I get lots of chest pain and have ended up in Aand E a few times in the past months , they say its fibromyalgia but i do have a pacemaker because of heart block and this is why i need my BP to be controlled !

Renal denervation has been around since 2010. It is now in its third new improved version.

My AF is now permanent and I have yet to be convinced that an AV Node ablation is the solution.

i did not realise it had been around since 2010 Derek ,i thought it was very new ! Do you know what the success rate is /?

The first version was discontinued as results were not as good as hoped.

When I first heard of it I wrote to the company Medtronic and their UK rep contacted me and helped me to get an appointment at Imperial College.

She has now left the company. Her mother had the procedure and had been happy with it.  

Presumably the 3d version has had better results , her mother is lucky to have had it !

Her mother had the original version.

Colin ,  can i ask if you now have your BP sorted out ? I see you attend Dr Lobo's NHS clinic , I asked my GP who said  Dr Lobo has no magic bullets either so has not referred me , Last night i read on here about a lady who has uncontrolled BP and had symptoms that were like a stroke and was a bit worried , i now cannot find that post ! I just wanted to tell her i had something similar and ended up in hospital where they said it was my BP and did an angio which was ok they said ! i was put on Isosorbide but that gave me bleeding gums so i had to stop it ! Im now trying to take a small dose of Candesartan from which i still get bad side effects and because i had a spirometry which was normal my dr seems not that bothered ! My counsellor says i need to ask for a referrel to the consultant i saw at Harefield ,, Do you feel better having been able to go to the NHS clinic ? sorry to go on , im just fed up ,, how do you find other posts on here / ?

Gwen, my experience is that at Barts they try low doses of several drugs to try and reduce the side effects rather than a larger does of one drug. They also aim to find a combination of drugs that does not produce intolerable side effects. They also take into account the fact that as people get older they often do better on reduced doses of drugs. I found that elsewhere doctors were baffled when my BP went up when doses were increased and down when they were lowered. At present I am taking three different drugs: one Minitrans5 patcheach 24 hours, Ramapril 5mg and Felodipine 5mg. They each dilate various blood vessels in different ways and apparently the Ramapril/Felodipine combination can be just as effective as either Ramapril 10mg or Felodipine 10mg on its own, so reducing the possible side effects from each. I am about to try adding very low doses of furosimide in liquid form to they can range from 100ml to 200ml. For 89 I am doing OK but I know I will feel even better if I can reduce my BP a bit more. 

Thank you for this Colin , I  seem to react to them all , however done this way is sensible ,, I think i will try to get an app with Dr Lobo and then his NHS clinic ,, so glad you are doing ok ,,,