Tag: Hypertension Medication

With the known side effects of pharmaceutical drugs, more people are looking for natural cures for high blood pressure. If you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure you may need to take prescribed medication to correct the problem.

There are several medications that are used to reduce blood pressure. Each of these medications may have adverse side effects and should only be used under a doctor’s care. Diuretics flush the body of salts. Unfortunately, this may deplete your body of potassium and other minerals valuable in maintaining a healthy heart. Some diuretics interfere with uric acid excretion, causing or exacerbating gout and arthritis. Some diuretics increase cholesterol and others can cause sexual impotency as a side effect.

Sympathetic nerve inhibitors or alpha-blockers interfere with the message sent by the sympathetic nervous system and cause the vessels to contract thereby reducing the blood pressure. Alpha-blockers create swelling of extremities, chest pain, nausea, weight gain, vomiting, loss of bladder control, continuous and painful erections or impotence, joint and back pain, insomnia, stuffy nose, blurred vision and restlessness.

Calcium-channel blockers, another treatment for hypertension, make the arteries expand and allow the blood to flow more easily by slowing the rate that calcium enters both the heart and vessels. Some side effects of calcium-channel blocker are exhaustion, flushing, increased swelling in the feet, abdomen or ankles, heartburn, stomach upsets, difficulty swallowing, numbness, fainting, headaches, constipation, jaundice and chest pains. If you take a calcium channel-blocker, make sure that you don’t smoke and reveal all medications you are taking, including herbal supplements, to your doctor. Mixing several drugs or smoking while taking hypertension medication can create other problems like tachycardia – rapid heartbeats.

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