Dang. I need to start drinking more beer so I can quit!
Username/post…
Personally, I absolutely REFUSE to quit drinking beer OR smoking (anything).
One issue with BP meds and side effects is getting the dosage right, and choosing the right medication. As some of us have noted, ACE inhibitors can be unpleasant to say the least.
Right now, having lost a bunch of weight, we’re still trying to get my dosage right. We’ve halved my beta blocker, and I’m hoping to halve the ARB. I’ve always tended to postural hypotension (when you stand up suddenly and briefly get dizzy) but in recent years, it’s evolving into “if I stand in a line too long”, and lately “If I stand in a line too long, or even go grocery shopping, or if the weather gods decide it’s funny”. It’s becoming disabling.
And the doc is kinda pooh-poohing it - “Just drink plenty of fluids. Maybe eat more salt!”. Except a couple weeks back, we had pho for lunch (plenty of sodium, and I had a large drink as well), and I had to quit grocery shopping halfway through.
I measured my BP this afternoon and it was 104/70. Pity it isn’t easy to measure it when I’m out somewhere and start getting light-headed; I suspect it would look strange to lug my Omron along and whip it out in the middle of the pasta aisle.
Learn how to use a stethoscope and sphygmomanometer (if you don’t know already). It won’t be any less cumbersome–in fact it will be moreso–but the cool factor goes way up.
Asking those who take them: Do the diuretics dehydrate you? It seems like it would be a viscous circle with the drug making you urinate but you having to keep ingesting liquids to keep from dehydrating which is the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve. I could see this being a real problem out here in the desert where I live and that caters to seniors.
That’s a good question! (and love the typo; being dehydrated WOULD make you a little more viscous). I’ve only taken them briefly or at a very low dose. I can state that they are hideously inconvenient on long road trips; when I was on one for a bit in 2022, we were driving down I-5 through Oregon and California, and for once, I was the one who needed to find a bathroom every 45 minutes.
Raw speculation here, but if properly dosed, they ought to get rid of only the excess fluid. I could be dead wrong there, of course.
As it happens, I did learn to use a stethoscope / sphygmomanometer, back in the dark ages before the shmancy electronic ones existed. Tough to do on oneself, since you need one hand to hold the stethoscope in place, and another to squeeze the bulb, in addition to the one that’s sorta out of commission due to being on the arm being measured. You could certainly use that hand for the bulb, but that might screw up the reading.
Darn auto correct! I know that, at least once, I had it spelled right AND had the same thought about the misspelling. This obviously got my fingers to circumvent my brain. Oh well.
This happened to me. It’s the only medicine I am allergic to. I thought I was going to die. Amlodipine is no bueno.
Metoprolol Succinate, here. 6+ years, no issue.
Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! 
I’ve been taking blood pressure medication for several years now. There was one which gave me an uncontrollable cough, so I stopped using it. When my doctor found out, he got upset because I was supposed to tell him. Eventually (this took a few months), he worked out a series of medications that worked for me.
The effects have been night and day. I used to get nosebleeds all the time, which could be cause by something as simple as washing my face or even leaning over. Now I don’t. I used to get exhausted and heart-pounding walking up just a few flights of stairs. Now I don’t. I used to have my heart start racing for no apparent reason. Now I don’t. Those medications quite literally gave me my life back. (And of course things like giving up fast food and getting a rowing machine…I’ll start a thread about that one later…helped as well.) I’ve noticed no adverse affects from any of them. There was one that was supposed to increase urination, but in my case that’s like taping a pipe bomb to a nuclear missile.
Anyway, my only advice: If you have a life-threatening condition, get it fixed. Don’t pay attention to any of the hearsay. See an actual doctor with actual medical knowledge and work out a prescription plan that’s right for you. If something gives you problems, let the doctor know right away so you can find a better option.
Much luck to you, friend! 
Thank you, and this is so true!
My doctor has put me on 4mg candesartan. I don’t notice any effects at all, but my blood pressure is down from 141/100 to 112/75, which is a big improvement.
Excellent results!
One thing I found, years back, was that a tendency to get a little lightheaded on first standing up, that I’d had all my life, came back when my BP was under good control. This is the transient sort of lightheadedness, not the more disabling “can’t go grocery shopping” problems I’m having at the moment. I remember when the transient sort started recurring, I thought it was fantastic.
I’ve been monitoring my BP a lot more frequently lately. This week it’s been 90-100 / 60-69. Hopefully this will be enough to persuade doc to lower one of my doses soon.
I had to stop taking them, because I was waking every day with a dehydration headache. I already drink tons of water; increasing my consumption is just a logistical impossibility.
I was just diagnosed with hypertension and I’m not happy about it. I’d always been prehypertensive with blood pressure around 135/75 so not that big a deal. At my last physical I was 155/95 so the doc had me get a home measurement device and had me take my blood pressure twice a day for two weeks and come back. It was consistently in that range. When he saw the results he freaked the fuck out and gave me a giant lecture about how I’m at high risk for stroke and heart attack.
I’m thin and I don’t use tobacco, don’t drink alcohol and don’t drink coffee. My only vice is a little bit of weed which doesn’t affect blood pressure. So it’s meds for me for life.
I am being started with 80mg of Valsartan aka Diovan which is an ARB. It’s only been two days and I’ve had a couple of low readings. Sometimes it feels like it takes more effort to breathe or I’m a little spacey but I could be imagining it. Seeing the doc again in ten days.
Bummer on the hypertension with no risk factors!! The only lifestyle factors it sounds like you could try are more exercise, and reducing sodium, if appropriate. If you’re having enough trouble, it’s quite possible a different medication would be an option, or a lower dose of the one you’re on.
I was the opposite of you. Obese my entire adult life, my BP was still always great, until my second child was born. I had pre-eclampsia with her - vaguely seeing one reading of 190/150 as they were wheeling me down for an emergency c-section. BP normalized, but a year later started creeping back up.
My doc actually suggested I consider eating more salt if I’m having a lot of trouble with the lightheadedness. I saw her last week and showed her recent history; she saw one reading of something like 92/62 and said “Oh, that might be an error”… except I’ve had lots of readings like that. But she did say I could cut my ARB - olmesartan - in half (annoyingly, the pills are not scored, so I bought a pill cutter years back).
I have no clue how they decide which class of meds to try - I’ve been on a beta blocker for 25+ years, and the ARB for about 14. An ACE inhibitor for a couple of months and wasn’t THAT a fun little ride… I know the beta blocker lowers my heart rate; the ACE (then ARB) were because they supposedly help protect the kidneys from damage due to T2DM.
I’ve been taking antihypertensive medication for years. I was started on Atenolol and did well for years. Then my doctor added amlodipine. Years later, he added losartan, but there were problems with that class of drugs so he stopped it and bumped up the amlodipine.
My PCP has retired, and I have delayed looking for a replacement. The only good thing about my PCP was that he was hypertensive himself, so he was always up on the latest research. The order of drug classes he’d add was the current suggested method. He took atenolol, amlodipine, losartan, and a diuretic specifically because he was African American.
I definitely do not watch my salt intake. There’s a lot of salt in everything. The doc didn’t mention salt at all. I could do with more exercise. I am moderately active but probably not enough. Nothing has changed from this year to now so it’s just age I thing.
I wouldn’t call my symptom light headedness. I’m not dizzy. It’s like a migraine without the pain. Just thinking a bit more slowly. I can get that with allergies so it may be coincidentally that.
My doc is also hypertensive. He was freaking out over my readings and said that I have to see him every two weeks until it’s sorted out.
I had the ‘lisinopril cough’ and was switched to amlodipine and losartan. I also take a thyroid pill - synthroid? I am always a bit light headed. and no one has mentioned this, but, I have been taking these for 5 years, and every year since I started, I have photographic proof of weight gain. Surely it cant just be lazy-old-age and eating too much! I have blimped up year by year and despair of ever losing weight, Other factors may be involved, but I can’t help feeling high blood pressure medication and thyroid medication are major causes.
I’ve been in thyroid medication for over 30 years. I was on 75ug forever and bumped to 100ug a few years ago. The generic of Synthroid. If anything, thyroid meds should make you lose weight but who knows what a combo can cause.
The synthroid should REDUCE weight gain. When were your thyroid levels last checked? It’s quite possible you are not on the correct dosage.
A suggestion I made to my daughter a few months back: I had driven her to urgent care due to back pain, and she got weighed, and got nearly hysterical when she was at an all-time high (191, I think, and she’s 5’6"). I suggested that she start tracking everything she ate via an app; not necessarily to restrict her eating, at first, but because it can really be eye-opening to see what your actual intake is. I don’t do this routinely myself (and right now, I really should, due to Ozempic-induced undereating).
I had not heard of any correlation between BP meds and weight gain, though I’m not at all familiar with amlodipine. I’m on a beta blocker (bisoprolol), and an ARB, and have not had this issue - I mean, my weight has fluctuated, but nothing that correlates with any BP meds.
As far as light-headedness: is that only when standing (either as you stand, or after standing too long)? I have a lifetime history of getting briefly lightheaded when I first I stand up; that stopped happening as my BP got worse, but now I consider it a sign that my BP is generally under good control. The new behavior, of starting to gray out when standing in a line too long - or sometimes even when walking around a store - is new, unwelcome and out-and-out disabling.
thanks for the information, I really need to get back to the dr. to have this done. I did stop smoking around that time, and I suffered many very stressful things since then.