Doxazosin probs along with shortage of breath and cough and trouble speaking

I am on Perindopril 8 mg, Bendroflumethiazide 2.5 mg, Atorvastatin 20 mg, Omeprazole 20 mg, Atenolol 50 mg, and now have been prescribed Doxazosin 1mg. I have just checked my blood pressure and it is 145/89 and has been virtually the same for the last 3 to 4 weeks, now over the last 3 months or so have developed a cough and shortage of breath and keep gasping for air when exerting. Also speech is a bit of a problem, Been for Heart Echo Scan and results show nothing wrong at all, along with 7 blood tests, Dr. cannot find anything wrong, I am a 69 year old male.

[Happyrosie]

Hello DrBa and I'm sorry you are short of breath and so on. Does your doctor having nothing to offer you as far as a diagnosis is concerned? on this forum we are all just people with hypertension, we are not diagnosticians. But I might be able to help a bit.

Have you consulted the website Blood Pressure UK - a charity devoted to this subject? If you haven't, that would be your first port of call. You will see that they say, amongst other things, that you need to keep your weight within normal limits and do plenty of exercise, and make sure your diet is full of vegetables and so on.

I hope you are feeling better soon.

[Hidden in reply to Happyrosie]

Thank you very much for your interest,I have had hypertension now for about 10 years but only recently had this annoying breath and cough problem.

Thanks again and I will consult the website

[springcross]

Have you checked out the side effects of these medications? If not, read the side effects on the leaflets in the boxes (I noticed on the NHS website that one of the side effects of Perindopril is dry, tickly cough that does not go away). You can also check them all on drugs.com and rxlist.com too - they are very good informative sites. Of course, it could be that one of the drugs is interacting with one or more of the others.

Just checked and shortness of breath is listed on NHS as a side effect of Atenolol.

[Hidden in reply to springcross]

Yes thank you for your informative reply and I might try to stop taking one or more of the drugs and see what happens.

[springcross in reply to Hidden]

Please don't stop any of them without first consulting with your GP, this is important.

[Ropa511]

That is quite a cocktail of BP drugs to be on....particularly if your BP is still not adequately controlled. So yes of course you will get troublesom side effects.

I have my moments on just 2 low dose meds!

Have you asked to go to a BP Specialist????

If you need to be on more than 3 drugs, then it could well be that rather than throwing more medication at the problem, that you have other underlying issues that need addressing....possibly including general lifestyle.

All the best.

[Hidden in reply to Ropa511]

Thank you for your informative reply, I also think that I am being prescribed too many drugs for the same problem.

I never smoked, I perhaps only have a beer once a fortnight, was a healthy , fit carpenter.

I am going to try and stop one of the drugs for a while, keep checking my blood pressure twice daily and see how it goes. I never had this shortage of breath and cough before being treated for B.P.

Thanks again

[Ropa511]

Do discuss with your GP first.

Some drugs, and in particular beta blockers are actually very dangerous to just stop taking, and you have to be weened off from very gradually.

[jannie21]

PLEASE speak to your GP before you stop any medications. I developed a cough on BP medication and it was a side effect of one of the BP meds, I was then changed onto a different type of med and hey presto my cough went.

You must not just stop them, try checking the side effects listed on the leaflet in the BP meds.