Blood pressure medications

[MandalayVA]

I currently take Benicar for high blood pressure. I've been doing LC seriously since late May and recently I've had a couple of episodes of lightheadedness. I know it's said that LC does drop your blood pressure and one of my goals in following this is to stop having to take a pill every morning, so I wanted to see if anyone had experience with being on BP meds and if (and how) they were able to discontinue them.

[kebaldwin]

i got off of BP medicine - but I did it very slowly - like over six months. Every month or two I would cut my dosage in half.

Technically, I have to tell you - don't do this on your own - meet with your doctor to do this.

[pennink]

I agree, see your doctor before doing anything

You might need to up your sodium/potassium. It happened to me and I'm on two meds. I just had my doc appt and hoorayyyy!!!! 126/80... first time in years i'm in the normal range.

[kebaldwin]

I agree with the potassium, magnesium, and other supplements.

http://altmedicine.about.com/cs/herbsvitaminsek/a/Hypertension.htm

Also, my blood pressure often swung up and down a lot more (while getting off the BP medicine) then than it does now. Now the only time my blood pressure goes up is if I eat something I should not eat. Or I am exercising.

Then again, the first six months I was trying a lot of foods that I should not eat, and cheating occassionally.

In other words - you might have days where you feel you are taking too much BP medicine and others days (after you start decreasing it) you feel like you are not taking enough. Try to look at the average over a week or two.

[Nancy LC]

Get a blood pressure cuff so you can see what yours is at, at home. They're not all that expensive any longer.

[MizKitty]

I was on high dose of Lisinopril, and still had too high BP (160/90) when I started LC. After 5 months, I was experiencing lightheadedness and bought my own BP cuff, nd after seeing how low I was (105/60) weened myself off the drug over about a weeks time, first cutting the dose in half, then in 1/4's. I don't know if there would have been danger in stopping it cold.

That was a few months ago... I test regularly now that I own a BP meter, and am always normal/low normal.

Good luck to you!

[NorthPeace]

I have been monitoring my own bp for about 4 weeks now. It has been trending downward, with weight loss and a ramipril prescription. I did not see any correlation between bp and lightheadedness. Over about a two week period recently I have been very sluggish, getting virtually no exercise and my bp continued to drop, typically to 110/62. Then one day I was helping friends move, and had to go home. Another day I had to leave work early. These times, my diastolic bp was 55-58 mm Hg.I stopped taking meds a couple of days until I could see a doctor. He cut the dose in half - now it is the lowest dose they make. Now two days later my bp is up, but so is my energy, so I think I will have to adapt a bit to the lower dosage. A good thing perhaps: I may have to exercise to get it down, but also will have the energy to do so.

Tonight, 119/72, starting a new trend...

[Cajunboy47]

My blood pressure was about 135/85 for last several years, which I just assumed was normal for me, but then it started creeping upwards to 145/92. Also, my at rest pulse rate had been 90 to 100 for about 10 years.

Being on vitamins/minerals/amino acids and herbs, I hated to start with blood pressure meds when advised to do so by my doctors. So, I started taking an herbal medicine and increased vitamins C. I don't know if increasing vitamin C has anything to do with it, but that is all I've changed in my supplements to explain my current blood pressure and pulse rate.

My Vitamin C intake is now 4g each morning and 4g each night. My herbal medicine is "Er Long Zuo Ci Wan" and I take it according to the directions on the bottle. Since I made these two changes only, I've seen my blood pressure come down to 114/69 and my pulse rate down to 68 since February of this year