5.5 to 6, depending on the day.
One synthroid.
1 multivitamin
1 to control my heart beat rate.
2.5 or 3 Warfarin, depending on the day.
Not bad for 72.
Saw the answer to #1 today at work. 65+ yo man told his PCP he didn’t want to be taking so many pills. He didn’t give any concrete reason. (He wasn’t on very many for his age.) His PCP shrugged and went along w/ the man’s plan to stop his beta blocker, prescribed for blood pressure control. No real reason given. Possibly he was embarrassed to say. (ED is my guess.)
Hur dur, man walks around for a month, then has the worst chest pain of his life. 10/10. Figures it’ll go away. After a few days, takes his BP. It was over 200 systolic. Finally, he goes to his local ER. Imaging shows he has an aneurysm in his aortic arch. Refused nitroglycerin and beta blockers in the ER. Local ER calls us for advice.
No surgeon on the weekends in his community hospital. If it had popped, he’d have been dead in a flash. He’s lucky the weather is unseasonably warm here in flyover country. If he had to take a ground ambulance instead of a helicopter, he would likely be dead now. They don’t fly in bad weather.
In my role at a large, ranked academic medical center, I help decide which cases we do and don’t take. You can fuck around and find out about a lot of medical decisions. Try this, try that, skip some things. But blood pressure is one thing you do not want to mess around with. It’s tricky once you are on the meds, to get off the meds and maintain healthy BP. Most people can’t. Too many factors go into blood pressure. Your body adjusts to the meds. In fact, people frequently need more and more blood pressure meds over time, once they start, to maintain a healthy pressure. Especially if they aren’t taking care of themselves well.
Guess who doesn’t take care of themselves well? People who want to quit taking meds for no solid reason. People who are too lazy to pick up prescriptions and take a pill every day. People who won’t tell their doctor they’re upset about their weiner being soft because it’s embarrassing.
It’s pretty common that if you stop your blood pressure meds cold turkey, your pressures will soar, and not necessarily predictably. People are almost never vigilant enough about checking their BP very frequently. Especially not people looking to cut down on their boring chores that remind them they are aging.
Welp, this dude lived. At least so far. He’s in the ICU, and they’re pouring beta blockers into him by the gallon now. No Super Bowl for him this year. Maybe no more Super Bowls ever, depending on how it goes.
When I started this job, I had a lot of ideas about what kinds of cases I would see in the hospital. I thought, lots of heart attacks! But, no. Lots of strokes and other serious conditions caused or exacerbated by not maintaining healthy blood pressure.
Also, by the way–get yourself the very best PCP you can, and go to the best hospitals. I know only 3 hospitals in this state I would trust if I or a loved one had a stroke. Most PCPs and community hospital staff (often not MDs or DOs anymore, just NPs and PAs) are not aware enough of the consequences of not treating high blood pressure like it’s deadly serious. #1 comment our Stroke service gives in consults is, you are not doing enough to treat this patient’s high blood pressure. Get aggressive with meds! Why do you think it’s OK for someone who is having a stroke to still have a BP over 160 systolic after several hours in your ER? Many of them don’t give any BP meds at all! (Don’t get me started on how scared they are to administer TPA. We commonly see cases where we don’t get a call until the 24 hour window for stroke treatment has expired…while the patient has sat in the local ER all that time, getting no meaningful treatment.)
It’s the #1 thing I tell everyone I know now. Don’t fuck around with high blood pressure. You will not like your quality of life if something goes wrong. I used to not want BP meds too. Now I know better. Most people with blood pressure related problems don’t go fast like Mr. No Meds would have. Most of them have a long, slow, ugly death. Multiple strokes. Vascular dementia. Loss of independence and quality of life.
My sister’s a medical examiner. We are fun at parties. Well, she’s the fun one, really. She sees the pubic hairstyles and the tattoos.
Actually… I think you have that backwards. Melanin actually prevents vitamin D synthesis, it’s entirely unnecessary to produce it.
On the other hand, lacking pigment your skin is vulnerable to sun damage so protecting against that and taking a vitamin D pill might still be your best long-term option.
Thank you for your obvious experience and expertise. I readily review records where people fail to comply with all manner of recommendations for no good reason. My bias would be for doctors to say, “Come back when you’ve stopped smoking, lost some weight, and adopted a better diet, and we’ll discuss maintenance meds!” 
I have no general opinion about HTN meds. But I am somewhat wary about all manner of meds being overprescribed, and - once begun - not discontinued. I suppose a flipside of stopping meds for no good reason is that there ought to be good reasons for staying on meds - especially longterm maintenance meds.
WRT my MIL. She had been an alcoholic, continued to smoke, had had a heart attack, but as her dementia progressed, her main probs were related to her COPD. Of course she kept smoking while on O2! 
She was incapable of managing her own health care, so her daughters had to haul her around to appts and supervise her meds. Her blood pressure had dropped as she lost weight. At one point, we perceived that she liked to keep going to the cardiologist because she flirted with him and enjoyed the attention. And - what the heck - it’s covered by Medicare so it’s free, right?
So my wife asked the GP if she could manage the BP meds, and she said “of course.” So, eliminate 1 specialist visit, the meds were subsequently reduced, and HTN played no apparent role in MIL’s lengthy demise.
This was in no way a desire to stop taking meds for no legitimate reason. But IMO the specialist offered no good reason for continuing with the visits. And, IMO, at least an occasional MD has on occasion too readily prescribed a medication, and has failed to suggest weaning off meds when appropriate. In no way intended as a criticism of the entire medical profession (although people will perceive criticism where they wish.) I have a personal preference to NOT take meds if I can manage my condition through lifestyle.
i checked my blood pressure today at the drug store with their test-it-yourself machine.
It told me I was overweight, which I thought was rude and uncalled for.
If you were Garfield (the cat), it’d be telling you One at a time, one at a time! 
The robot(sometimes female, sometimes a male voice) customer service where I order vital medications likes to tell me “Your call and time are important to us. Since you’re having a nice day I’m happy for you, please wait patiently, you’re #4 in line”
I always wanna say “Shut-up asshole, you don’t know me, I feel like crap today!” But I don’t wanna lose my place in line.
Absolutely. As I said in my first post:
I hate to hear this. I don’t doubt it, but I hate to hear it. (Thanks for your informative post.)
I’m 56. None. Well, except for a Vitamin D pill once a day. Not sure if I need it or not, but the winters are long here.
And excretory functions.
Shh! don’t break the surprise!