ARB's (Telmisartan/Candesartan) causi... - British Heart Fou...

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ARB's (Telmisartan/Candesartan) causing Back Pain, do all of them?

Robin_RAA profile image
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Hello there - I am new here and hoping for some experience/advice, please excuse the length but is due to giving a proper explanation of my situation.

Background: I am 47 years of age and until middle of last year I had been taking Lisinopril (ACE) for over 15 years without any real noticeable side effects - but then last year from January I decided on a health kick to lose allot of weight. Via fitness/diet from Jan to June 2020 I went from around 115kg/18 Stone to 105kg/16.5 Stone (taking me from obese to overweight) and at that stage I started to get side effects, feeling weak/dizzy and a ACE cough (which I never had before) also got some tinnitus/stress and blood pressure shot up without any change to my meds. I thought losing weight would improve things but by dropping to my lowest weight in those 15 years seems to have suddenly hit me with side effects.

Switch to ARB: As a result my doctor recommended I should try an ARB instead, so I started Telmisartan in October 2020 instead. Straight away I noticed that I was getting back pain/twinges which were really annoying, was told that sometimes side effects go away as you adjust to the medication but it persisted until the end of 2020. So now in 2021 decided with my doctor to switch to Candesartan, and getting the exact same side effect of annoying back pain/twinges. I know it is both the medicines doing this as I took some time medication free between switching and the pains went away in between them.

Question: Has anyone experienced this before on these/other ARBs? Did the pains finally go away after some months as your body got used to them? Also would you expect that because the first two ARB meds caused this side effect for me that all the other ARBs will probably be the same? In which case I suppose I need to look to going back to a new ACE medication.

Thanks in advance for any experience/advice/recommendations in this area.

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Lakesaver profile image
Lakesaver

I get back pain with Bisoprolol and other similar meds my GP has prescribed instead. If I take Bisoprolol every day as required I am incapacitated with back pain. I take Bisoprolol ever 48 hrs now instead of 24 hours.

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