For a couple of years, my major health concern has been the spikes in my blood pressure that occur when I'm in the off period as the old levodopa pill wears off and the new one hasn't kicked in. My take has been that the origins of the problem stems from the levodopa off periods. Six of the doctors I've consulted – – a former internist, two current geriatricians, and three Parkinson's neurologists – – have told me in effect that I was crazy and that all I needed was to get back on the hypertension meds I had stopped taking.
Finally and accidentally this standoff has been resolved. I ran out of my regular carbidopa levodopa pills and hadn't reordered because I saw another container in my medicine cabinet. But it turned out to be for extended release carbidopa levodopa. I had to use these pills pending renewal of my prescription for the regular pills.
As soon as I started taking the extended release pills, the dangerous spikes in my blood pressure readings went away. I now get readings under the 150/90 blood pressure guideline for those of us over 60 virtually all the time.
And I'm experiencing a significant added benefit – – my incontinence has slowed down to the extent that I'm back to just wearing a pad in my underwear and no longer use the diapers.
For more detailed report on this, see my blog post at bit.ly/1GhanUW. I've also added a post on tips on lowering blood pressure without pills – – bit.ly/1C4Cvqo
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