20 years old and high BP. - PART II -

[nospin06]

Pslam, have you considered increasing the intensity of your workouts or regulating your diet more while on Verapamil to combat weight gain?

I have actually lost a few pounds during the past weeks. Before, my workouts consisted of 3 mile runs around the track and an hour or so in the weight room. My old weight training regime consisted of strength and muscle mass exercises; I was able to bench press 220lbs. But now, I've decided to go for muscle definition and tone in my workouts. College resumes for me next week so my workout time will be cut in half unfortunately.

[pslam 91]

nospin, by noway compare yourself to me. I am a 42 yr. old female. I am guessing you are a male. Am I right? At a young age of 20 yrs. We middle age females contend with things that men will never know or understand. Weight, because of hormones, becomes an issue at our age.

Now, about the verapamil. I was the heaviest after using the verapamil. The dr. who first perscribed it always gave me a hard time about me being too thin, so he probible thought weight wasnt an issue for me. I didnt even realize verapamil could cause weight gain until I read a post on the headache board. Verapamil is used for migrains too. I have more of those in my mid-life state too. So I like the verapamil for that.

To combat the weight, I try to walk a mile or two and I watch my caloric intake.
I also add apple cider vinager to my water. I found this fall that I got my weight down to a good place, but gained it over the holidays, so I am back to square one. I don't mind though. Food is not a huge issue for me. If anything, I have to make myself stop to eat to keep my blood sugars up.

It looks like you are doing a super job on the exercise. That while help your stress level, whick will help your b/p. If your are in good shape, I wouldnt worry about the verapamil. Just watch what you eat and exercise, and at your young age you should do great.

[nospin06]

Thanks for the support Pslam and sorry for the confusion/mix-up!
How's your bp on the verpamil? Are you over any side effects? I want to wish you best of luck with your treatment. =)

I've check my bp the last 2 nights, and it averages out to
130/65. I hope my Omron machine isnt fooling me! But the Verpamil does make me a more calm person, specifically, not as nervous or anxious in life as before.

[wr6969]

nospin, glad to know that the drug is doing something to control your hypertension! It appears as if it is slowly coming under control with the CCB. I really can't give much input on verapamil, because I was on both Plendil and Norvasc (both of which totally disagreed with me!) which had somewhat different side effects than verapamil.

A slower pulse definitely makes you less anxious as the drug will control those anxiety symptoms better. When I was on beta blockers, I too find it difficult to raise the pulse to an extent where I could feel the heart "beating" in my chest, but nevertheless, I still exercised as before with no untoward side effects. The only difference now was that I wasn't able to truly "stress" my heart out as before during exercise. Now that I'm weaning off the beta blockers (I only take 10mg of propranolol once every 2 days, an amount which many say doesn't have any effect whatsoever on the heart since it's too low a dose, but I take it nonetheless for physchological reasons! ) I can sense that the pulse rate during exercise is starting to go beyond previous levels again, which is a good sign I guess.

Side note: I noticed also that your sister's systolic number is also a tad high. I'm now wondering if both you and your sister have somehow "inherited" this isolated systolic hypertension condition

[zip2play]

wr,

Just as an addendum, propranolol 10 mg. is commonly prescribed for occasional use to combat anticipated STAGE FRIGHT.
Congrats on finding that every second day use for it...if you told your doctor, he'd recoil in HORROR.

(I use it (20mg) only in the morning and it wears off quickly...it helps if I plan on using certain body parts)
A dose before bedtime will have me awake all night....an anomaly, I know, but for me beta-blockes are better than caffeine at ruining sleep.