Though only a few months this time, and not entirely of my own making.
A few months back I had a general “check in with the doctor” type thing and my blood pressure was so high that they wanted to send me straight to hospital. I wasn’t really into that idea as hospitals are not an environment I find at all relaxing, so I ended up being prescribed Amlodipine and Rampril and sent home.
That didn’t go well at all. I could manage about four hours a day after taking the drugs (in the morning, it said on the prescription) before exhaustion overtook me and I spent the rest of the day completely wiped out.
Several weeks later I managed to get the Amlodipine switched to Lacidipine. The effects weren’t quite so extreme, but still sufficient that I wasn’t useful for anything much in the afternoons and ended up reading close to the entire stock of Amazon. My BP didn’t seem to be improving that much though, so the dose of Lacidipine was increased and I ended up seeing the same sort of effect as with the Amlodipine along with a few other problems. My resting heart rate significantly rose, for instance, and if I did pretty much any form of exercise I’d be short of breath and exhausted within a few minutes. My arms and legs often ended up shaking, I’d get dizzy if I stood up too fast and occasionally I’d get blurred vision. Basically I couldn’t really function as a human being. Walking down stairs became a challenge and I didn’t dare drive or, for example, use any tools that have the potential to cause injury if I lose focus or am clumsy.
Eventually I got sick of the way I was feeling and started taking by blood pressure at intervals during the day. It would start in the morning at about 190 (systolic) and after taking the drugs would drop down as low as 110 in the early afternoon before climbing back up again in the evening. That early afternoon low coincided with my exhaustion, so eventually I got hold of the GP again and it was agreed that I should reduce the dose of Lacidipine again and start taking the Ramipril in the evening.
That last change has toned things down a bit, but I’m still struggling and really not enjoying life. I had so many plans for this Spring and pretty much none of them have happened 🙁 And I’m not sure the medication is actually achieving anything meaningful either.
So, that’s where I am. Life is miserable, I can’t plan that much, I’ve become forgetful, I can’t concentrate that well, it’s making me increasingly frustrated, I’ve lost confidence that anything is really likely to improve and if I’m honest, I’ve become quite depressed. Trying to avoid attempting to make all the problems go away for a while using alcohol is a major struggle at times. It feels as though my entire life is defined by efforts to sort out my blood pressure.
Perhaps the most irritating thing is that the blood and urine tests I’ve done have come back with no cause for concern and I have no other symptoms. The weekend before I was diagnosed I spent five hours solid shifting the contents of some friends’ barn when they expected it would take me double that.
So, expect a fair bit of whinging about this topic now. I’m hoping that perhaps not continuing to suffer in silence might help.