Blood pressure

[JMyrtle]

Hi everybody
This isn't truly a diabetes question but I need some advice please.
My sight has been quite fuzzy for a while and at my annual diabetes eye test at the end of June the opthalmist said I had cataracts which my optition confirmed last week so I am off to have the first one done at the end of September.at the local eye clinic.
I am one of those people whose blood pressure goes up as soon as I go anywhere near a doctor or the hospital and the eye clinic have said they cannot operate if my BP is too high so my GP has advised to take my own readings for a couple of days before I go to clinic and take the results with me.
I am already on a very low dose of Lisnopril so he has also given me an extra pack and told me to double up the dose for a monrh before I go in.
Does this sound good advice or is there anything else I could do myself?

 

[Eddy Edson]

Hi everybody
This isn't truly a diabetes question but I need some advice please.
My sight has been quite fuzzy for a while and at my annual diabetes eye test at the end of June the opthalmist said I had cataracts which my optition confirmed last week so I am off to have the first one done at the end of September.at the local eye clinic.
I am one of those people whose blood pressure goes up as soon as I go anywhere near a doctor or the hospital and the eye clinic have said they cannot operate if my BP is too high so my GP has advised to take my own readings for a couple of days before I go to clinic and take the results with me.
I am already on a very low dose of Lisnopril so he has also given me an extra pack and told me to double up the dose for a monrh before I go in.
Does this sound good advice or is there anything else I could do myself?

What's your BP now?

I'm no expert but I think the usual advice would be stuff you no doubt already know: less salt and more exercise; longer term cut down on saturated fats & refined carbs and lose weight.

Any objections to taking the Lisnopril? Depending on yr BP and no doubt a bunch of other things, think it's pretty common also to be prescribed a second type of med at the same time, like an ARB inhibitor (a -sartan) or a calcium channel blocker (a -dipine & others). Has yr doc talked about that?

 

[JMyrtle]

Hi there, my BP is usually somewhere around 115 over 70 or thereabouts.
Our surgery has a policy of a low dose (2.5) of Lisnopril as a preventative rather than treatment so I have been on it for about fifteen years since I reached 50 and my BP started to creep up a little although it was never clinically high, without any tests and follow ups other than the annual review for which I always take a weeks worth of readings so "Nursey" uses those and doesn't take a reading at the surgery because we both know it will be artificially high.

 

[Eddy Edson]

Obviously that's a great BP level! Just guessing, but I'd expect the cataract people would understand the "white coat syndrome" given that it's very common, and would pay attention to your home readings.

Maybe the only prob with temporarily increasing yr Lisnopril dosage is if it makes your BP go low enough to start feeling blah - that happened to me when I was on two meds and my BP started going below 100 / 60. But not a big deal - you'd just go back to the original dose.

 

[JMyrtle]

Thanks Eddy, my BP getting too low so I started falling over was what I was worried about.
I'm on the classic low carbs diabetic type 2 diet and I have a dislike of anything salty so I don't add it to food either when cooking or as a condiment..
I am also not a great drinker (that is fluids rather than alcohol! ) but if I up my fluid intake I spend all day "tinkling"
Long as doubling the BP meds for a month doesn't have any hidden side effects I had overlooked that is probably the best way forward.

 

[DaveB]

Hi. Am I missing something here? Lisinopril is medication for High not Low BP. If you were falling over due to low BP surely the medication should be stopped? A BP of 115/70 is brilliant and needs no treatment unless for some other reason. I must disagree with a surgery that starts patients on Lisinopril as a 'preventative' as all BP meds have side effects. HCPs tend to ignore the fact that as you get older your BP naturally increases and to therefore treat all us oldies as having high BP and therefore needing pills is highly suspect; a bit of Big Pharma lurking methinks.

 

[JMyrtle]

Sorry Dave misunderstanding here!
I was concerned that if I doubled up the dose of Lisnopril my BP would become too low and I would start falling over to coin a phrase..
I was put on Lisnopril about fifteen years ago because my BP had started to creep up and my then GP told me if I took this one tablet a day he could guarantee I would ever have a stroke or heart attack and it was what they recommended.
All I want to do is to make sure that when I go for cataract surgery my BP is low enough to do it, once it's over I can relax, my BP will go back to 115 /70 and I can reduce my dose of Lisnopril back to what it was before.
At least that's the theory anyway!

 

[nonethewiser]

my BP is usually somewhere around 115 over 70 or thereabouts.

No expert but readings around there are perfectly acceptable, can't see why they would want to increase meds, strange decision, even if you suffer from white coat the readings will still be high on day of op, I'm another white coat sufferer yet have great readings back home, it is what it is.

 

[mikeyB]

Before I had my cataracts done, nobody took my BP. They aren't interested, it only takes 20 minutes and you stay awake throughout. It's not like when you are under anaesthetic, when your BP is monitored, so I don't really know what all the fuss is about. Don't change your Lisinopril, whatever you do. All they do prior to surgery is measure your eye size, so they can fit the right lens for twenty twenty vision. You will need reading glasses after you've gotten used to seeing the world in HD. I don't think multifocal lenses are offered on the NHS, but if they are, refuse them.

If those charity teams that drive a mobile clinic round Africa and India checked everyone's BP they'd get nothing done, instead of making 15 people a day able to see again.

 

[JMyrtle]

Hi Mike
I have to go in the morning to have all the tests done and then have the surgery in the afternoon, the person who rang me to book the date went thru my list of medicines and said they would need to check my BP because I was on Lisnopril
That's why my GP told me to double up my dose for a month before I go in, I can go back to my usual dose after that.
I had a routine endoscopy a few weeks back, (I need to have one every five years because I have a small hiatus hernia) and they took my blood pressure then too and got excited about the reading so made me wait until it came down a little before they would proceed.