Getting My Meds Rearranged

[Restorer]

I finally decided I had had enough of lying around at home, and I talked to my nephrologist about changing my blood pressure meds.

I'll be decreasing metoprolol today and clonidine tomorrow, slowly. Clonidine can have a rebound hypertension effect if you stop or decrease it suddenly, so I'll be slowly tapering it down to nothing. I'm keeping the metoprolol a step ahead, because it can increase the rebound from the clonidine.

I'll be increasing my lisinopril from 10 mg a day to as high as 40, and then last, playing with my nifedipine amount until I'm at a good blood pressure level.

Also, will be limiting my fluid intake and challenging my dry weight to see if that let's me stay on lower overall levels of meds.

Starting the month out trying to change things. 

[MooseMom]

I'm on 3 bp meds myself, but I've never heard of the ones you are taking.  What kind of hypertensives are they?

I got my neph to change the dosage of my atenolol early on because I got lethargic and got bored with being bored.

[Rerun]

I hope it works for you.

     

[kristina]

I took Metoprolol (under a different brand name) after my first Kidney failure in 1971 and it made me very lethargic and tired. It was soon changed because I wanted to be able to study and being lethargic was not the ticket.
 
Lisinopril unfortunately caused an allergic reaction which made my BP raise and as a result Lisinopril failed to control my BP properly.

Nifedipine also gave me an allergic reaction.

Atenolol I took for a long time (before the stroke) and it gave me ice-cold extremities as a side-effect, i.e. ice- cold hands & ice-cold feet, it made me very tired & failed miserably to keep my BP under control, but I did not know it at the time because I had not yet my own BP-machine at home.

I keep a list of all the medicines which had given me adverse reactions and I always take it with me.

I do hope, things work out and I wish you good luck, Kristina.

[casper2636]

My gosh... my meds are so strong that I have to bend over to keep from passing out. I'm taking .4mg of Clonidine, 50mg of Metoprolol, Norvasc10mg (2x), and Lisinopril 20mg. Talk about tired! I feel like my kidneys have failed - high blood pressure can't kill them any more, I just don't want to stroke out! And D makes my pressure so low, I can't even stand up!!!

[Restorer]

All the names I gave are generic names - let me see if I can find the brand names...

I'm currently taking Prinivil (lisinopril), an ACE inhibitor, 10 mg once a day; Procardia XL (extended-release nifedipine), a calcium-channel blocker, 60 mg twice a day; Lopressor (metoprolol), a beta-blocker, 50 mg twice a day; Catapres (clonidine), an alpha-agonist, 0.2 mg three times a day.

I don't understand my blood pressure - even on all these, it's high unless I'm digesting something substantial. If I have a small breakfast and go into dialysis, it stays so high that they're reluctant to let me go at the end (170/115 is common). If I eat, that combined with the pills puts me around 130/90 when I get there, and anywhere from the same to 100/60 when I'm done.

After dialysis, I tend to feel drained and tired, and my blood pressure stays so low that I just can't really do anything. I'm hoping that I can decrease my meds and challenge my dry weight so that I feel better most of the time.

I've had a reaction to the combination of a higher dose of a different ACE inhibitor (benazepril) and nifedipine (a different brand, but I doubt it makes much of a difference) - at least, I suspect that's what the reaction was to. It may have had something to do with potassium, and it may have gone away as I got used to the drugs. I never really figured it out. Since I switched to 10 mg of lisinopril, I haven't had that problem, but I'll see if anything happens as I change things around.

I kind of like the metoprolol. It does make it harder for me to do much physical activity - when climbing stairs, it burns out my legs much faster - but because it's a beta-blocker, it seems to help with my anxiety a little. Not the causes of it, just some of the symptoms: sweating, fast heartbeat, hot flashes, cold sweats, even blushing. So I might try to keep a moderate dose of metoprolol.

My doctor gave me free reign to do my own adjustments because he felt like I knew what I was doing.