Lower
Your Blood Pressure Naturally
"Learn
The Commonly Prescribed Drugs And Their Potentially Dangerous Side Effects"
As I discussed in the previous
article, there are many methods of the treatment for high blood
pressure. In the last article we talked about basic lifestyle changes
and drus sucha s diuretics. There are still many other methods used to
treat High Blood Pressure that also include drugs and medications.
Beta Blockers
Another major category of blood
pressure medication is known as beta-blockers. These drugs reduce the
nerve impulses to the heart and blood vessels, making the heart beat
more slowly and with less force. This causes the blood pressure to drop
because the blood is putting less force on the vessels.
If you have been taking beta-blockers
and then stop using them, you may have increased asthma symptoms,
lowered good cholesterol levels or an increased heart rate.
Beta-blockers are a good example of why, if you use traditional
medicine for your treatment of high blood pressure, you may end up
having to take drugs for the rest of your life because the rebound when
you go off the drugs can be dramatic.
Other side effects of beta-blockers
can include insomnia, cold hands and feet, tiredness and depression.
People who have diabetes need to be monitored very carefully if they
are taking insulin along with beta-blockers.
Ace Inhibitors
Angiotensin Converting Enzyme
inhibitors, also known as ACE inhibitors, prevent the formation of a
chemical, angiotensin II, which causes the blood vessels to narrow.
Taking an ACE inhibitor can help the blood vessels relax, allowing
blood to flow more easily.
Side effects of ACE inhibitors can
include skin rashes, loss of your sense of taste, or a chronic, dry
cough. In rare instances kidney damage can occur.
Other similar drugs include the
angiotensin II receptor blockers—which shield blood vessels
from angiotensin, allowing the blood vessels to widen—and
calcium channel blockers, which keep calcium from moving into the
muscle cells of the blood vessels and heart, allowing vessels to relax
and blood pressure to go down. Both of these types of drugs may cause
dizziness, while the calcium channel blockers can also lead to heart
palpitations, headaches, swollen ankles, constipation and varied other
problems depending on the particular type of ACE inhibitor you are
taking.
Alpha Blockers
Alpha-blockers reduce nerve impulses
to the blood vessels. Without the impulses, the muscles can't contract.
This relaxes the blood vessels, allowing blood to flow more easily and
the blood pressure to be reduced.
When you first take an alpha-blocker,
you may have a huge dip in blood pressure that causes dizziness and can
make you feel faint. After continued use of the drug, side effects may
include headaches, nausea, weakness, pounding heart, weight gain and
increase of "bad" cholesterol. Some studies have even shown that
alpha-blockers can cause heart failure when used long-term, exactly one
of the conditions you're trying to prevent by treating your high blood
pressure!
Sometimes alpha and
beta-blockers are combined to make for a safer treatment plan, but all
of the same side effects and potential problems are still there.
Vasodilator
Vasodilators, also known as blood
vessel dilators, open the blood vessels by relaxing the muscle in the
vessel walls, allowing blood pressure to go down. These drugs are
usually used with other blood pressure reducing drugs for best results.
These drugs can cause headaches,
swelling around the eyes, heart palpitations or aches and pains in the
joints. These symptoms usually go away after a couple of weeks. One
vasodilator you may have heard of is Minoxidil, which is also marketed
as a hair- growth stimulator. It shouldn't be a surprise, then, that a
side effect of taking it for high blood pressure is hair growth.
Another is extreme weight gain. It is only used in very severe cases of
high blood pressure that do not respond to other treatments.
Warning!
Don’t Just Stop
Using Your Blood Pressure Drugs.
If your doctor has prescribed a
blood-pressure lowering drug or combination of drugs for you and you
are currently taking them, do not stop all at once or without
consulting your doctor.
As mentioned above it is possible to
cause health problems by coming off the drugs, and you certainly don't
want to make your problems worse by playing doctor yourself. Talk to
your doctor about your intention to treat your blood pressure
naturally, and the two of you can develop a plan for getting you off
the blood pressure drugs without further harming your health.
If you aren't already on one or some
of these drugs, however, read on to learn about some more natural ways
you can control your blood pressure. Armed with information, you and
your doctor should be able to come up with an
intelligent plan for treating your high blood pressure and getting it
under control before it causes any health problems for you. Let's move
on to talking about the concrete things you can do, starting today, to
reverse your high blood pressure problems.
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