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I've struggled with borderline hypertension for years, having tried every class of BP medication there is without finding relief. ACE inhibitors worked very well but caused the typical cough, forcing me to stop.
Fast forward to now, and I ran across a study (quite old, actually) that mentioned iron supplementation taken with ACE inhibitors prevented the cough in a non-trivial number of patients. So I ordered some Lisinopril, having been on Cardura for months with just minimal results. This is all self-prescriptive. I've been through too many physicians without results other than a negatively trending bank account, so I just experiment slowly with trial and error.
So I took the Lisinopril, which dropped my BP way down.. systolic by an easy 30 points and diastolic around 10-20, which put me in the 120/70 range. Beautiful. At this time, I actually dropped the Cardura, deciding to just let it get out of my system while the Lisinopril took over. However, over the following days, the relief I found initially faded. Wtf? Turns out that Lisinopril and Cardura don't really do much for me on their own.. but together, they work wonderfully. I discovered this completely by accident. Combination therapy is fairly common, but I never considered it because it just seemed too complicated an experiment.
Now about that cough. It's flared back a little, but so far, it's not impacting life quality like it was before. Before it would wake me up all through the night, but now, maybe once... if any. I think the iron is actually making a difference.
So the moral of this story is if you have been struggling with BP, and nothing has worked other than ACE inhibitors which make you cough like you have the consumption, try an iron supplement, taken at the same time. I also don't know why Lisinopril monotherapy didn't work this time around but just kills it with Cardura.
Most people will just use a doctor for all of this, but I've just had the absolute worst luck with physicians in my life, so I go it alone these days. I know there are doctors out there that could have shortcutted all this bullshit by a few years, but I just can't find them.
There are lot more studies available. That's just one.
Fast forward to now, and I ran across a study (quite old, actually) that mentioned iron supplementation taken with ACE inhibitors prevented the cough in a non-trivial number of patients. So I ordered some Lisinopril, having been on Cardura for months with just minimal results. This is all self-prescriptive. I've been through too many physicians without results other than a negatively trending bank account, so I just experiment slowly with trial and error.
So I took the Lisinopril, which dropped my BP way down.. systolic by an easy 30 points and diastolic around 10-20, which put me in the 120/70 range. Beautiful. At this time, I actually dropped the Cardura, deciding to just let it get out of my system while the Lisinopril took over. However, over the following days, the relief I found initially faded. Wtf? Turns out that Lisinopril and Cardura don't really do much for me on their own.. but together, they work wonderfully. I discovered this completely by accident. Combination therapy is fairly common, but I never considered it because it just seemed too complicated an experiment.
Now about that cough. It's flared back a little, but so far, it's not impacting life quality like it was before. Before it would wake me up all through the night, but now, maybe once... if any. I think the iron is actually making a difference.
So the moral of this story is if you have been struggling with BP, and nothing has worked other than ACE inhibitors which make you cough like you have the consumption, try an iron supplement, taken at the same time. I also don't know why Lisinopril monotherapy didn't work this time around but just kills it with Cardura.
Most people will just use a doctor for all of this, but I've just had the absolute worst luck with physicians in my life, so I go it alone these days. I know there are doctors out there that could have shortcutted all this bullshit by a few years, but I just can't find them.
There are lot more studies available. That's just one.
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