:wave: Hi everyone!

I'm on my fourth week of Micardis 80mg. I use an old fashioned manual shpyg., and my BP was 135/74. Not bad. I wish the systolic was lower, but that will hopefully come with more weight loss. I think I'm doing well. I feel great.

:nono: My doctor wanted to add HCTZ after just two weeks on the med, and I asked him for another two weeks without it (literature says four weeks for optimum effect). Problem is that my BP spikes at his office, but is consistently in the normal to high-normal range at all other times. Anybody else have this situation?

I'm reluctant to add another med. I might have to go along with the Micardis HCT (80mg/12.5mg). Comments?

tatooyou...

Try the diuretic, the loss of water weight is always nice on a diet. I can always tell if I forget to take the HCTZ when I step in the scale the next day.:D

I recommend however, that you get the HCTZ prescription SEPARATELY and then you can titrate the drug dosage (or indeed take one or the other) to suit YOU and not ABBOT PHARMACEUTICALS. If you hate the diuretic, you can just let it lay in your medicine chest and use it for occasional salt overdoses.
(Of course, don't tell your doctor you plan on fiddling the dosage...he'll hold up a cross as he shrieks in horror and sprinkles you with holy water:D:D)

Hctz can increase glucose and cholesterol so you may want to consider that as weel. I never had a cholesterol problem until they added hctz to my bp med therapy. Now it is a battle to lower it. Good luck.

I already have a cholesterol imbalance low HDL / high LDL & trigs. My doctor knows this, yet he prescribed it to me anyway.

The blood test (one month ago) was NOT done fasting. I asked about it and he said that fasting doesn't affect HDL.

If it's not one thing it's another!

Interesting...My doctor prescribed hctz for me on my first visit based on one bp reading. Upon requesting a second bp reading he declined, stating that the numbers reflected my reaction to stress, which he felt was accurate. As a diabetic, I am interested in the comment about hctz raising glucose levels. I did not see this on the prescription info, so could you tell me your source for this info? I am thinking of changing doctors...... :confused:

Newforme, i got this info from my Diabetes Management magazine.It was while waiting to be seen by my gp that i read this article. I asked my gp about the article and he said yes it is true that thiazides increase glucose and cholesterol, but he wanted me to keep taking it. Then when i left his office, i asked the pharmacist and she said the same thing. I kept taking the hctz and a month later when i went to my endo, i asked him (i trust him the most of all my drs) and he said yes, but the benefit outweights the risk. Yeah right, my glucose went from 5.6 to 7.9 all in a yrs time. My cholesterol jumped from 180 to 335. I never had a problem with my diabetes, or my cholesterol until five or six yrs ago when i was prescribed all these bp meds.

Drs know about the increase or glucose & cholesterol but never mention it to the patients. Why not call your dr and ask him see what happens.