Blood Pressure Stories

[cands]

I am a 55 years old. About 4 years ago I was diagnosed with high blood pressure. I mentioned to my GP that my blood pressure was always higher first thing in the morning (160/110), and would gradually drop during the day. If I exercised heavily, like going to the gym, it would drop to about 130/80.

I was put onto amlodipine 5mg with the dose increased a short time later to 10mg. My blood pressure was still higher in the morning but did come down a bit.

In June this year, thanks to an observant (and nagging) partner and a new GP, I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnoea. AHI 58.9, oxygen desaturation at 60%. I started CPAP, have been 100% compliant, and my AHI is now below 1.0.

Thanks to the information on the boards, I knew to keep an eye on my blood pressure. After 6 weeks or so of CPAP, in consultation with my GP, I reduced my meds to 5mg. My blood pressure has continued to drop. A week ago I stopped the meds completely. My blood pressure this morning was 105/60.

What is your experience with blood pressure?

[richb]

I have a similar BP story. High in the AM and lower the rest of the day. I also had breathing problems - nose always clogged. I was on Afrin at night to be able to breathe. I have been on an Aircurve 10 ASV machine since December. Since then I have had nasal surgery which allowed me to get off the Afrin. I am also off the BP meds previously prescribed by my Dr. My morning BP is now around 135 / 85. The problem is that my daytime BP drops to numbers like 92 / 58. I am now going off other meds to find a solution. I am also getting an Adrenalin insufficiency test. I have Idiopathic Central Apnea which is most likely caused by a broken feedback mechanism in my body. This broken system may also be contributing to my poor BP regulation. I hope to find a solution.

Rich

[cate1898]

Wow, nice to hear both of your stories of getting off BP meds. I unfortunately am not so lucky. My BP is better than it was, but not enough to either reduce or get off my meds. At least, not yet....

[Timur]

Cands, congratulations on your wonderful reduction in BP!

I'm 52 years old and have had high blood pressure since I was in my early thirties.

No doctor could ever find a reason for this since I'm a small woman who is physically active, don't smoke and so they pinned it on genes because my dad has had resistant hypertension since he was in his 30s as well and was an ultramarathon runner until 75!

So, although CPAP has helped me tremendously, within weeks of going off my meds, my BP unfortunately creeps back up.

But, CPAP has helped me to control my BP much better, and with less medication. (1 med now at half dose vs 3 at full dose 2 years ago)

Cands, I am curious about something. I too was on Amlodipine 10mg for about a year and a half and it caused me to have horribly swollen ankles.

Did you experience this side effect?

This disappeared within days of stopping it, and I will never go back on it again.

[justMongo]

...it caused me to have horribly swollen ankles.

That's a common side effect of Amlodipine.

[cands]

Cands, congratulations on your wonderful reduction in BP!

Cands, I am curious about something. I too was on Amlodipine 10mg for about a year and a half and it caused me to have horribly swollen ankles.

Did you experience this side effect?

This disappeared within days of stopping it, and I will never go back on it again.

Thank you.

Yes I did get swollen ankles, but not badly enough to have to stop the medication. It seemed to be worse in summer, and wasn't all the time.
It was not fun, and I was very self-conscious about it! I was very glad to be rid of the amlodipine. I remember the doctor said there were plenty of alternatives we could try if we needed to, but it never really got too severe.

In the last few days before I stopped the meds, I got dizzy and almost fell over every time I stood up. That, thankfully has passed now the medication is out of my system.

[Mosquitobait]

Congratulations on getting off the blood pressure meds!! Yay!!

No, not my experience. My blood pressure issues occur from post-nasal drip and are controlled using stomach acid reducers (yeah, who'd have thought?). Cpap made no difference in this.

[SideSleeper]

I have been on CPAP for just short of a year, and managed to loose 30 pounds, but getting a real scare when it was discovered I had a high A1C about the time I started CPAP helped start the weight loss. My BP is down significantly and I quit taking prescription strength Nexium about 8 months ago--no more heartburn and reflux. My husband's reflux went away with CPAP and he really had it bad.

[PaulaO2]

I've had high BP since I was 16 but was not put on meds until I was 20. We've struggled to find a medication that really worked. Beta Blockers worked but exacerbated my asthma. Once I had to stop those, it was never really controlled. With the diagnosis of sleep apnea, I noticed it was more stable. After a few years, though, I had a huge scare with it. It was high enough to be stroke level. After a lot of tests, the sleep doc did a single night with an oximeter, raised the CPAP pressure by 2, and called me cured. The BP did slowly go down but was again harder to control. My current GP and I were discussing it a few years ago and she said that they had changed beta blockers to not interfere with asthma so we tried one of those. Bingo. Not only does it help with the BP, but it also slows my heart rate down. I take 150mg of metatoporol.

And now with the Autoset and SleepyHead (and dumping the sleep doc for a GP who enjoys being educated), we are looking at perhaps lowering the dose. My BP has been rather low lately, even in the heat of this summer. It is something we are slated to look at this fall.

[Dawei]

When diet and exercise didn't get my bp into the desired range, my doc put me on a beta blocker which produced really terrible side effects for me. Then, a cardiologist suggested my primary care doc try me on Cozaar, which was new at the time. After several years, I'm still on Losartan (generic Cozaar) with no side effects at all and excellent bp control.
Until recently, I had been on 100mg daily of Losartan. In talking with my doc it was decided to try an experiment of reducing the dosage to see what my numbers would look like. After dropping the dosage in half, it was found that my bp didn't change. So, now I'm taking 50mg/day. What I hadn't considered earlier is that the dosage drop may have been possible due to the positive effects of APAP usage.
David