Two blood pressure tablets at the same time?

[toekneep]

I took my mum to the doctors last week and he changed her medication. When we looked at what she was being given in her weekly blister pack it seems that two of the tablets are to reduce blood pressure. She had the doctor out today as she is feeling worse than ever and the doctor phoned the pharmacist to check the tablets and confirmed that they were OK. It just seems really odd to me, why would anybody need to take two different blood pressure tablets at the same time?

[hellymedic]

Two medicines for high blood pressure is not at all unusual. Sometimes they are combined in a single tablet, sometimes not. Having two different medicines means using the synergy of two different treatment modes without hopefully running into the advese effects of a higher dose of a single mode.

[toekneep]

Thank you HM, I did suspect that there may be a genuine explanation it just seemed strange to my layperson's logic.

[FyPuNK]

I have been for my MOT and both BP and cholesterol have shot up, the last time I checked was 4 years ago and they were pretty happy, the strange thing is its been a year now since I changed my lifestyle, stopped drinking every night, eat really good with lots of fruit and veg and of course exercise, now cycling between 65 and 100 miles a week, the level of fitness in the last three months is amazing and I feel the best I have for a long time. Cholesterol is at 7, pretty scary at first but they said not to worry as the HDL is very high and LDL is low and the risk of CVD is at 7% but they cant understand the high BP, is it white coat syndrome? we are not sure, I will be monitored over the next couple of weeks and I will be given a monitor to use at home but it may be genetic (mums side) and the chemicals will have to come, something I am not looking forward to. We will discuss a plan next week at reducing the cholesterol and hopefully try and reduce BP.

[Sergeant Pluck]

She had the doctor out today as she is feeling worse than ever

It's not unusual for the body to take a little while to adapt to a change in dose or drug regime. I don't have much info to go on, and I am sure she will already have been given this advice, but it's not a bad idea if she was to stand up more slowly than usual until things settle, and to seek advice if persistently light headed or dizzy.

[TimO]

...We will discuss a plan next week at reducing the cholesterol and hopefully try and reduce BP.

According to my old GP, 2/3 of your cholesterol is produced by your body, so reducing it in your diet can only have a limited effect on it.

[hellymedic]

Blood pressure machines are fairly cheap nowadays. (Use an upper arm model for accuracy.) You might wish to consider monitoring blood pressure at home and checking if pressure drops on standing up. Tchibo machines are very cheap when they sell them.

[FyPuNK]

The plan is to lower it as much as we can, medication wasn't mentioned, the HDL is very high so they don't consider it a risk but as we need to lower BP it's more a case of killing two birds. It appears they have one that is loaned to the px Helly so I am on the list, hopefully it's just white coat syndrome.