Quote:
Originally Posted by ItsRick24
I have Stage 2 Hypertension. My reading (just today) was 167/104. I take Amlodipine 10mg. daily
I've been dealing with up-and-down BP for many years, but of late it's gotten up there. I'm 60, definitely not overweight (I'm a skinny guy), physically active and rarely get sick.
I hear about people younger than me dying from heart attacks and strokes. I take my meds and my BP drops but then it climbs again. I'm getting a little scared here! I don't know what else to do.
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You're taking it every day, right? Once blood pressure medication is prescribed, it's generally prescribed for life.
I am not a fan of amlodipine or calcium channel blockers in general. It gave me swelling. I didn't need swelling. In fact, I so didn't need swelling that I had a heart attack on October 25.
Rick, please heed what I'm going to say. I fit what you describe. I'm 57. I exercise. I could lose 20 pounds but that's not enough to cause a heart attack (especially because some of that extra 20 pounds is actually muscle, due to working out so much, I've got some legs, back, and arm muscles). And yet, after doing the kind of workout I'd been doing for 20 years (cardio kickboxing), there I was, massive heart attack, complete with v-tach (the lower chambers of my heart went haywire). I've been vegetarian since 2009, do not eat fried foods, and not only do I work out, on non-workout days I walk at least 5 miles over hilly terrain and do about 12-14 miles with a hiking group on the weekend.
So why did I have a heart attack?
Genetics. Everyone on my father's side was dead by 57 except him. It's like I got issued my commemorative 57th birthday heart attack. My father's father had a massive stroke at 40 that left him paralyzed from the waist down and unable to speak, and he died at 45. My father died at 78, but he did have a silent heart attack in his 50s.
I got diagnosed with hypertension when I was 38. Again, genetics, thanks Dad.
My suggestions to you are:
1. Take your medications as prescribed. If they are not doing the trick, call your doctor. There are so many different kinds of BP meds out there.
2. Make sure you have a good home BP monitor. I was told last week that a lot of the home models are only good for a year or two. I was shocked to hear that, as I'd been using the same BP monitor for 19 years.
My cardiology team recommended the Omron 10 series.
3. Weigh yourself in the morning and again in the evening. If you gain more than two pounds in a day or five pounds in a week, call your doctor, as you might be retaining fluid. It's normal to put on about a pound or so from morning to evening in a day as you eat, drink water, etc. But too much fluid retention is a strain on your heart. When I had my heart attack, I had been struggling with fluid retention for a couple of months so much that I had cankles. I thought it was summer swelling. Nope. It was fluid retention and my heart failing.
4. Get your cholesterol checked. Mine was well controlled with a statin. Unfortunately, they did discover a 40-60% blockage at the midpoint of the LAD, a coronary artery, in summer 2022 and a piece of the soft plaque had broken off and caused the heart attack. Again, genetic. This is what happened on my father's side.
I hope this helps. Millions of people get hypertension as they age. You haven't done anything wrong. But you do need to control it. Trust me. You don't want a heart attack. It sucks.
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