Are There Any Meds.

[BlueIsland]

That don't make you feel like junk????

Altace- Didn't do anything for me except raise my blood pressure & pulse. Made me feel like junk.

Toprol (100 MG)- Upset Stomach, Chills, Hands & Feet always cold.

Lotrel (5/20)- Depressed... Not sure if it is the Toprol or Lotrel. Loss Of Breath

Xanax- Shaky in between doses of 1 mg.

I'm only 33 & can perform concerts great. Can play 3 sets of tennis & not feel tired.

B/P has consistently remained around 118/70. Scared to go back to the same clown of a doctor that put me on this stuff, but afraid to get off of it.

Any suggestions?

[zuzu8]

Hi BlueIsland-
Did you ever try any of the angiotensin 2 receptor blockers (ARBs)?
Benicar, Diovan, Atacand etc? Virtually side effect free. Won't do much for fast heart rate like the betas, but certainly have less side effects than all the other anti-hypertensives!

zuzu xx

[zip2play]

BlueIsland,
You are in good company working your way through these truly MISERABLE classes of drugs and dealing with doctors who know as much about the delicate concerto that is BP regualtion as a cat knows about kibble is manyfactured.

Try zuzu's recommendation for an ARB but I've found it's down-side is that the effects are small. Maybe small effects and few side effects go hand in hand. If you then have to add one or two other agents for control, then you're back to square one.

It's a grim situation.

Doctors must simply LOVE it: they've defined a disease that is incurable, with meds that don't work well, requiring constant fiddling (thus revisits) and with plenty of side-effects (thus revisits.) Gee, and the situation persisists for life.

Pile ten patients like this together and it's a Mazerati for a jerk with no more skills than a self inflating pump!
(Can you guess, I've just been to the doctor)

[BlueIsland]

After seeing your previous posts about Diovan Zuzu, I asked my doc. for a prescription. My B/P has been great 118/70 on average, but at 33 I think that with modifications that I have made in my lifestyle I can do that on my own. It's more anxiety then anything else. This process has been miserable for me. I don't have the drive that I once had, which I need for my profession. My stomach has never felt like junk before these meds. & I never needed xanax before. It has actually made me more depressed+, since I was in March when I was on no meds. He wouldn't prescribe Diovan, because he said that it was the same as Altace, which didn't work. I know that is B.S. I want to go to a Doctor to ween off, but I am terrified at this point. I don't know what to do....I'm never seeing the 1st clown again. I guess that Diovan didn't pay him or something...

[wr6969]

BlueIsland, your post has made me reminisce about my adventures with a beta blocker and anti-anxiety drugs! In addition to the beta blocker and the Xanax, I was also on Valium! Great combination huh? While that regulated my BP most of the time, they made me feel like a zombie and depressed, with no "zest" for life. I decided to get off them unilaterally, and changed doctors. I then went to calcium channel blockers like Plendil and Norvasc, which didn't quite agree with me (side effects included unpredictable mild headaches as well as the intolerable fast pulse) which to top it all off, didn't control my BP at all.

My latest adventure is with Diovan from Novartis, in doses of 80mg. As many have mentioned, this is an angiotension-II receptor blocker (ARB), and I am very happy with the absence of side effects so far. I've only been on it a week, so I can't tell whether this is regulating my BP better than the previous meds or not. I'll post later when I've had a visit to my cardiologist in a week's time, but so far, I *think* it's working!

Oh, in case I forgot to mention, I've felt much better coming off the beta blockers, Xanax and Valium! I'm more energetic, and the "zest" for life has returned. Be very very careful about the Xanax (I was only on 0.25mg twice daily) and how long you're on it - I was on it for 8 months (a lot of people were surprised that I just quit cold turkey after that long) and I'm still suffering withdrawals from it (increased anxiety, etc, which I'm handling by telling myself that I really want to beat this darned affliction!)...

While Altace may be in the same class as Diovan, I've been told that even drugs in the same class may act differently on different people, so I would certainly give it a try if you're already suffering from your present combo of meds now...and change doctors if you don't trust the one that you have now...