Blood pressure spike

[frankaspergilus]

Hi all.

Just wondering if this might apply to some of you and, if so, what you may be doing about it.

On occasion, when the various parts of my body seem to decide to join each other and give me a full body, head to toe, bout of severe pain, I feel awful and if I check my blood pressure at this point it has sometimes risen from my normal 120/80 to 150/95 ish. It goes back down to normal after a while but I get the feeling that the increase in blood pressure is part of why I feel awful at the time as well as feeling awful from the pain itself.

My question to any of you who experience the same problem is "Do you take blood pressure meds or not?"

As my blood pressure is normally, without pain, OK, I wonder if taking meds might even create additional problems. I can check with my doctor but just wondered if anyone here was in the same predicament.

Thank you for any responses.

Frank

[Skymollie]

Hello Frank, I have OA and RA, with a start dx of PMR and on my worst days of not being able to move my blood pressure was still the same. About 110/80. I never noticed increased pain causing it to be high. I am a vegetarian/vegan, try to eat only good fats. I know that before I changed this eating habit I was prehypertension at 150/80. I never took BP meds. I changed my eating habits instead.

I am still overweight(obese at times), so weight also didn't seem to affect blood pressure. Ask your Dr. about all of your med interactions as some are known culprits. Good luck.

[frankaspergilus in reply to Skymollie]

Thanks Skymollie.

Yes, I have times too that I have maximum pain levels but my BP remains normal. I don't understand why it seems to be different sometimes.

I don't take any medication at all. I have problems with codeine and nsaids so just depend on the occasional paracetamol and turmeric which aren't really enough for pain but they won't be affecting blood pressure.

And I'm at the top end of my bmi but that's mostly down to not being able to exercise as much as I used to because of joint problems. No doubt the same for you at some level.

I wish I knew what spikes my BP so erratically. As I say, I don't know whether or not it ought to be treated or ignored. I'm pretty sure my doctor will just go ahead and put me on bp meds whether it's necessary or not but I don't want them long term if I don't need them.

Thanks again and good luck too.

[Skymollie in reply to frankaspergilus]

Hello Frank; I also don't take the meds they prescribe(methotrexate). I take 800 ml of turmeric/curcumin Truvani brand. After 9 months and two depo medrol shots, I find my pains much less so I occasionally take a celebrex(nsaid, but better for stomach) for aches. I have found that the turmeric lowers my blood pressure. In the 90's over 70 or80. The turmeric definitely reduces swelling. My rings can stay on my hands all the time now. I agree that to find out how to fix something on your own is better than being prescribed another medicine. Maybe make sure your heart is sound, as in no blockages. I had a scan once where they told me how much calcium was in the arteries. It was like an MRI machine but smaller. Ultrasound might work also. P.S. I think the BMI increase was more due to the couch and the cookies. lol

[Spencermm]

I don't k ow if this is applicable.

I have ibs-d(3 years)and high blood pressure(20 years).

I went the 1st year of ibs taking just over the counter meds for diarrhea, imodium and pepto bismal. BP was thru the roof! I asked ny heart doc if those meds could have this high bp effect. He said no.

Over the last few years ive found better treatment options than the previous otc meds and my BP went down to a manageable degree.

I will have occasional flares of bad ibs where i have to employ the old meds. Every time, EVERY TIME, the bp spikes. So ether the heart doc was wrong or there is some secondery biological thing going on as the result of those meds.

It could be argued that its the ibs spike is causing high bp, but i dont think so, because e early on i would be in a state of no ibs flare, continue the otc meds, no change in the bigh bp.