(Huff Post – Glenn D. Braunstein, M.D.) While a 140/90 blood pressure reading now would put you into a regimen of medical care, if your 75-year-old great-grandfather’s numbers were 180/110, no doctor would have blinked an eye throughout the 1950s. A mere 50 years ago, physicians described hypertension, or high blood pressure, with words like “essential” or “benign.” That’s because the thinking back then was that rising blood pressure was a normal — even necessary — part of aging. That was before the Framingham Heart Study published groundbreaking research in 1959 showing that people with elevated blood pressure had more heart attacks and coronary disease than those with normal blood pressure. Far from protecting elderly folks by forcing more blood through aging, stiff arteries to vital organs, as the old theory went, high blood pressure silently ravaged internal organs.
Finally, science showed that something had to be done to control the first proven risk factor associated with the nation’s epidemic of heart disease, and researchers set about looking for solutions. In the past half century, pharmaceutical discoveries have come up with dozens of medications to help people keep their blood pressure under control. The arsenal of treatments includes diuretics, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, angiotensin antagonists, calcium channel blockers, alpha-blockers, alpha-beta blockers, nervous system inhibitors and vasodilators. If one doesn’t work alone, often two or more in combination will do the trick. Protecting your heart, brain, kidneys and other organs from the destruction of high blood pressure is an area of medicine with dozens of individualized treatment options.
We’ve also learned that losing weight, eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and grains and low in salt, sugar and saturated fats, exercising daily and not smoking goes a long way in helping to control blood pressure. But we all know how difficult those lifestyle changes are to make and to stick with, and medications can help you stay safer even as you work on lifestyle changes. Working closely with your doctor will help you find what’s right for you to get your blood pressure down and keep it down.
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
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I say BULL!U amde the comment about working close with your doctor and that is the problem,most doctors don’t give a crap about the patient. My doctor over medicated me and after changing doctors 4 timess I finally found one that was able to get me off three of the four drugs my docto had me taking. I had complaint because after being put on 4 drugs for HBP I developed insomia,severe deppression with suicidal thoughts,hearing loss. When I complained about these side effects my doctor put me on deppression medicine,and a drug to help me sleep. These drugs caused more problems and made me worse. The doctor didn’t have any I dea what to do.After seeing four doctors that did nothing I finally was able to get some help . The carvedilol was causing my problems plus another drug I was taken off of. I now take only a Calcium Channel Blocker and we think I can get off it. My present doctors believes I was a case of “white coat hypertension” and never had HBP. I had to suffer for three years and am in the process of writing a book about my experience. The totle of the book is “What some Hardin County Doctors did to Me!”
yes i have had hbp for 12 years and have been in and out and been in icu 2 times being put on a drip for 4 days and it was 245/110 and when i left hosptal it was 109/79 with in 3 days it when up to 235/108 and right now it is 208/110 with bad headaches i am on 4 different kind of meds
Thanks jerry, I have been trying too tell my doctor I have white coat syndrome. My blood pressure is good at home but when I am at the doctors office it’s high and the Lisinopril is 20mg which I think is to high. It has such bad side effects for me. Thanks for posting!
Jerry I can relate to your experience in regards to White Coat syndrome. My docs thought my high BP was so bad that is was almost “malignant”. Of course, I was too dumb to check at home before my exam, but now I do and I still get a spike in the Dr. office due to the anxiety and stress associated with the Dr. appt. It’s a fight or flight response but home monitoring revealed that I was only slightly hypertensive at best. Lord help us if doctors don’t know the difference between white coat and real hypertension.
I do agree that, at least the doctors I have visited, just want you to take meds and live with side effects. I also found that some meds youu can take for a while but eventually they stop working so Drs want to add more. I am tired of changing meds and adjusting to new side effects so am very interested in your book and your results.
I agree that doctors do not care about the side efffects of the drugs they push. I was on Bystolic and it made me so spaced out I ran a stop sign on a busy road and nearly hit a van with a family in it. I told the doctor about this and he wanted to keep me on this drug and add another one to take with it!! I would like the doctor to take what he is prescribing so he can see how I feel. I am now on Lisinpril 40 mg but it makes me so fatigued all the time I fall asleep sitting up. Guess what, my doctor wants me to take more pills? How can I work etc. if I am so drugged?
In reply to this article I took Candesartan to lower blood pressure and these are the side effects I had:
Bl;ood in the urine urine incontinence dizzy to the point where I was falling down the stairs, all of which desappeared when I stopped the tablets (with my doctors approval). Then I had breast cancer that could have some links with me taking Candesartan (Even proffessors of oncology think there could be a possible link). Your article leaves me cold. Resperate helps me out and a good degree of optimisme.
I took Candesartan to lower my blood pressure these are the side effects: blood in the urine, urine incontinence, dizziness to the point I was getting so dizzy I fell down the stairs. All of which desappeared when I stopped the drug with my doctors approval. Then I had breast cancer which oncologists say could well be linked to me taking CaNDESARTAN. I now use resperate
which helps as well as a great deal of optimisme. I understand that drug companies have to make money but not to my expense. My maternal grand mother died aged 85 in 1950. Her blood pressure has always been very high and she took nothing because they had no drugs in thes days. If I live to be 85 I do not really care what kills me.
Esther Chennells
i have tried everthing to get my blood pressure down
nothing has worked– if i take blood pressure pills
the side effects pull it down a little-with the side effects(headachs-mucle problems-tired ect.)i can’t work
any suggestions
Well put Jerry. The current HMO insurance setup guarantees no patient interaction or satisfaction in addition to the customer “no service” attitude. But just remember, we have the best medical system in the world!
Secondly the drugs doctors prescribe are nothing more than a pharmaceutical band-aid that mask symptoms but do little to treat the root cause. These side effect ridden poison only reduce cardiovascular events by 30% supposedly. What about the other 70%? These are wretched results. The doctors that prescribe them know about the side effects but cover that up and have a “take your meds or else” philosophy and scare their patients. What a bunch of horse**** They are so clueless and ill trained in nutrition to realize the patient in many cases can achieve equal (if not better) results using a natural approach of diet, exercise and supplements.
We are in the dinaosaur age in terms of treating this condition. Modern medicine is failing us miserably.
Ray, I have to disagree. The doctors I know care a lot. But they are faced on a daily basis with those who just do not want to be troubled with diet and exercise regimes. And there are people like me, diet and exercise just is not sufficient to do the of getting the high blood pressure down. Some of us just plain need meds.
Scott, Keep in mind this is a food borne illness with a genetic predisposition. Cardiovascular disease and it’s associated risk factors are a product of the bitter harvest of the western diet. The meat, dairy and oils are just brutal on hypertension. A year ago, the docs were telling me my High BP was “genetic” and gave me 2 medications. That’s an easy thing to say when you don’t know the answer. It’s easy to blame everyone’s problems on genetics. Now, 12 months later after starting a plant based diet, my lab results are perfect, I take no BP meds and have a BP of 119/63.
I have high bp my reading range 160-180/85-95
I am taking exforg night 80/5 and morning codiovan160/25 and aftrtnoon nibalet 2.5M