Been prescribed Lisinopril due to inexplicable high blood pressure.
I have of course been given the normal medical knowledge about it, in particular to lie down the first time you take it - but would be interested in hearing about others’ experiences with this kind of drug.
Wow, I just googled it and it turns out it’s not actually a beta blocker. So can a mod please change the subject to “and other ACE inhibitors”?
(My cheat from nursing school: A(CE inhibitors) end in -pril = April; Beta blockers end in -olol, and the “lo” looks like a lower case “b” if you smoosh it together.)
The thing they never seem to tell people: ACE inhibitors like lisinopril can cause a really annoying persistent cough. Sometimes, this takes a while to appear. Sometimes, it goes away on its own. Sometimes, it doesn’t. It’s all so variable that people tend to forget about it until they’ve had an annoying cough for a year and have totally forgotten (if they were ever told) that it could be the lisinopril. If you do develop the “lisinopril cough”, do tell your doctor, and if it’s severe, stamp your feet and demand she try something else.
Otherwise: take it at the same time every day, be cautious for the first few days, get up slowly from a sitting position, sit back down again if you get dizzy. They probably told you all that.
Depending on the dose, you may notice more frequent urination, or more urine when you do pee. That’s normal, but if you get dehydrated, it increases the risk of dizziness/falls, so make sure you drink plenty of water (unless your doctor said to limit your water.)
Don’t take Excedrin, aspirin, Advil, Motrin, Aleve, ibuprofen or naproxen sodium without checking with your doctor first. If your lisinopril dose is high and/or you have problems with your kidneys, these medications be too hard on your kidneys.
Thanks, no one told me that! I take just under 3 grams of aspirin daily (as well as 16mg of buprenorphine and 50mg of testosterone) so something to consider…
Edit: Actually come to think of it it’s more like 3.6 grams. Mind you I have some tests cokming up in the next few weeks (including an ultrasound of my organs, like what they give to pregger ladies!) so this is a temporary thing, I’ll mention it to the docs but it probs ain’t a priority.
Edited title from “beta blockers” to “ACE inhibitors.”
:eek: 3.6 grams of aspirin a day? Holy cats, that’s a lot! How’s your stomach lining holding up?
Yes, do mention that. If the person who prescribed your lisinopril didn’t know that, you should mention that, like, tomorrow as soon as the office opens.
What’s wrong with that dose? It says on the tablets that you can take 4 doses a day of 3 tablets, and each tablet is 300mg. Is that not a normal thing to do?
Edit: Specifically, it says the following:
Take 1 to 3 tablets with water, every 4 hours. do not take more than 4 doses in any 24 hours. A lower dose is recommended for the elderly *snipped blah blah"
Is its definition of “dose” a tablet then? Cause I’ve been taking 12 tablets a day.
Would kinda suck if that is not acceptable given that I am on enormous amounts of opioids so there is no alternative…
It’s more than I generally see prescribed for daily use. 3g/day is sometimes prescribed for certain medical conditions like ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatoid arthritis and pleurisy, and I hardly even see it prescribed for those anymore. When prescribed at 3g/day, certain tests should be regularly done to check the level of salicylate in your blood, as well as your kidney function.
You should check with your doctor, who knows much more about A) you B) your other medications C) your body and D) your health conditions than I do. IF they’ve been prescribed at that dose by a medical doctor who is monitoring you, I wouldn’t be so concerned. If you’re self prescribing, then yes, it’s a very high dose for long term (more than 3 days) daily use that has a significant risk of side effects like stomach upset, bleeding and kidney damage.
Thanks, I will do. I have mentioned using aspirin but never given a specific dose (nor, I think, have I been asked).
Isn’t it great that a lady like you in Chicago* is potentially improving the health of a man in Port Erin, Isle of Man? I am really appreciative not just for your input, but for modern technology that permits these things!
*I think
Wouldn’t your upcoming jail sentence cause a spike in blood pressure?
Lisinopril causes weird side effects in me, so I have to stop it. I get pain in weird parts of my body when I sleep.
I got it within a few days when I started the drug, then I quit and used something else. Then a while later I started up again, and I went a year before the pain kicked in. No idea why that happened.
One side effect is it can increase your body potassium levels. That isn’t necessarily bad unless they get too high (I think a slight increase reduces your risk of diabetes, but I don’t know if anyone has tied lisinopril use to lower type 2 diabetes risk).
Edit, yeah they have.
Lisinopril is also a drug that will protect your kidneys above and beyond just the reduction in blood pressure.
I take HCTZ and diltiazem now.
What upcoming jail sentence 
Random dizziness, or a feeling that the ground was unsteady, occasionally, but I could not stop coughing. Coughed hard for 2 mos. until I went back and changed the Rx
Been taking 20mg lisinopril per day for years due to scarring on my kidneys, not had any major problems, although when I first started taking it I used to get a little woosy occasionally but that hasn’t happened for a long time.
I have been taking Lisinopril for several years, I forget how many, four maybe.
No side effects at all, but it has not worked at all either, despite doubling the dose.
Last time I was at the Doc’s she doubled it again, from 20mg once per day to 20mg twice per day.
If that doesn’t work I may ask to try a different medicine.
I was on Lisinopril for awhile, and it caused some severe joint pain for me. Once I switched (now I’m on Norvasc) it did go away.
I shared one of my experiences with it earlier.
I also took Lisinopril several years ago for several months and experienced what I was told is a common side effect - a chronic cough. It was of course too difficult for my doctor to figure out though and he had me taking all kinds of medication to “cure” my cough. I finally asked if the Lisinopril could be causing it. It could and did.
I’ve been taking Lisinopril for years. I had the cough for quite a while but it seems to have stopped.
I used to take Toprol. But it screwed up my mind, which I didn’t realize because my mind was screwed up. I didn’t realize it until my prescription ran out and I had to wait a few days to get it renewed. Around the second or third day off Toprol, I realized I felt fully alert for the first time in about a year.
Ho…ly…crap. Thank you for mentioning that. Someone very close to me has been confused, depressed and suffering from insomnia. Not sure if he can go off the metoprolol as, despite what studies show about the equivalency of beta-blockers, metoprolol seems to be the only one that works for him. But it might help him feel better just to know that the metoprolol could be causing his distress. This one, I did not know until I just looked it up. Two dozen doctors and pharmacists and no one’s ever mentioned it. :mad:
Question for WhyNot (because you’re a professional) or for people with actual experience: How would you compare ACE inhibitors like Lisinopril versus Angiotensin II inhibitors (like Valsartan or Losartan)?
I currently use Amlodipine (Norvasc) AND Lisinopril/HCTZ combination. I think the Lisinopril is causing some mild dry cough, but I’m not sure if it’s much worse than previously. Before that, I was using Losartan (Cozaar) instead of Lisinopril.
I switched from Losartan to Linisopril because it’s cheaper according to my HMO’s formulary. I’m wondering if I should switch back. (Both seem to work fine for me, and my doctor will agree to whichever I suggest.)
What are some of the other side-effects of either, that I should know about. I’m interested in some of the above comments, like raventhief’s remark about joint pain. I have that, but from arthritis. Would Lisinopril make that worse, and would Losartan be better? Also, I didn’t know about any of those drugs being better or worse for kidneys. Can someone tell us more about that?