Do You Understand Your Prescription Blood Pressure Drugs

Raena Morgan: Hi, I'm Raena Morgan with iHealthTube visiting with Robert Kowalski, the author of 'The Blood Pressure Cure.' And we're talking about the different prescription drugs that are prescribed for hypertension, and this chapter says, Understanding Prescription Drugs, and that's what we would like to talk to the viewers about. We've talked about diuretics being prescribed- Robert Kowalski: They should understand the drugs. Whatever the drug is that a doctor prescribes; you should understand how it works. Talk with your pharmacist; read the insert that comes along with the drug when you pick up the prescription, and in the case of hypertension, you can learn extensively about all the classes of drugs. Last time we visited, we talked about the diuretics, how they work and what their side effects might be. The next category of drug frequently prescribed is the beta blocker. This is almost always prescribed after an individual has had a heart attack, because what it does is to slow heart rate. Your heart rate is the resting beats of the heart, much much lower. By doing this, it in effect gives your heart a rest as it's recovering from that heart attack, and it has a blood pressure lowering effect at the same time. Now, the side effects that are involved with it are dizziness. If you were sitting as we are right now, and the phone rang, and you suddenly bolted upright to grab the phone, you could get dizzy- Raena Morgan: Real woozy. Robert Kowalski: This is particularly a problem with elderly individuals who find that they might actually stumble and fall. Raena Morgan: Alright. Robert Kowalski: And when this happens in the middle of the night, if they're combining a diuretic drug that makes you urinate more frequently, with the age where you urinate more frequently in the middle of the night, you get up a few times, now you get up out of bed and you're dizzy, some people have fallen and even injured themselves. The next thing that happens is, because the heart is beating at this reduced rate, there is a loss of energy. You just feel more fatigued; you just don't have the pep and vitality that you used to. Again, this drug like the diuretics, has a significant ill effect on sexual activity. Raena Morgan: Alright. Robert Kowalski: I wouldn't say; I almost said sexual performance, it's not that, you just don't want to anymore, and you can't. Raena Morgan: So you just lose your libido. Robert Kowalski: You lose your libido, exactly. The next one is a very important category that wasn't around when my dad had his heart attack. It's called the ace inhibitors, it doesn't matter what that stands for, but that's the term commonly used by the physicians. An ace inhibitor works at the kidney level. The kidney largely controls blood pressure and the ace inhibitor works to counter balance the ill effects that are going on with hypertensive patients in the kidney, by blocking this enzyme that the ace stands for. This one has a real problem in terms of producing for many, many patients a chronic cough. Not a once in a while, kind of thing. I mean a hacking cough that persists throughout the entire day, and it can certainly interfere with business as you're trying to talk on the phone. It just becomes truly more than just a nuisance. The next one is a brand new drug called a rennin inhibitor. Rennin is the substance that's made in the kidney that controls blood pressure. This one actually inhibits the production of rennin. Unfortunately it has those same ill effects as the ace inhibitor does in terms of potential for the cough. Raena Morgan: For the coughing. So that's two of them that cause the coughing. Robert Kowalski: The cough. Then we have what's referred to as the calcium channel blockers. It's important to note that what I've done in the book is to literally spell out every single prescription drug used for blood pressure that's on the market here in America. Raena Morgan: Okay. Robert Kowalski: Both in the United States and in Canada. Not only their generic name, in this case Nifedipine. Nifedipine is something that works very similarly to one of the supplements that I recommend in the book, one of my secret weapons as an alternative to a drug. The Nifedipine has 2 different trade names; Procardia and Adalat. So if you know that you're taking Adalat; you have no clue what it is, you can go to this chapter. Raena Morgan: Oh good, good. Robert Kowalski: Find out what the drug, where that drug is, it's all listed in the index, go straight to the drug and find out exactly how it works, what it's doing in the body, and the side effects, and see where you go from there. Raena Morgan: So you've really spelled this out for people. Robert Kowalski: Oh completely, so, as you'll see here. And we needn't go into extreme detail. There are for example, also alpha blockers as compared to the beta blockers. They work in a slightly different way, similarly an explanation of how they work; a listing of the drugs that are currently on the market in that category. The combination drugs, which are becoming more and more frequently used, so that people can take one pill rather than 2, because as I said, combination therapies. But the reality is that in most cases of hypertension, one drug isn't going to do the trick, because a typical antihypertensive drug will give you on average, 10 points of reduction. Raena Morgan: Okay. Robert Kowalski: Now, if you've been paying attention, which I know you have been Raena, you'll remember that the various kinds of agents that I recommend as alternatives, the dietary supplements from natural kinds of sources, have that same kind of an approach; that they work in a very similar kind of method, thereby giving about a 10 point drop, which is the equivalent of one of those prescription drugs. Now, just as a doctor might prescribe 2, 3 or even 4 of the prescription drugs in order to come down to what they call the target level of normalcy in blood pressure, you can combine 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, whatever number of these approaches in the book tailored to your own specific needs; to bring your pressure down to a point where you have totally reduced the risk of heart attack and stroke. Raena Morgan: Well, thank you very much Bob for that information. I know it will be very critically important to a lot of people. Robert Kowalski: Thank you