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Suggest Ways To Control Hypertension In An Elderly Person
Question: My wife is 77 years old and has alzheimers. For the past two weeks her blood pressure has been very high. Several times it has been 212 over 110 so I gave her clonidine 0.1 and it went down to 145 over 90 in about 1 hour and then the next day her bp back up to 190 over 100. I give her cozaar 100mg abd atenolol 50 mg morning and night and norvas 5 mg. She takes 1000 mg of keppra twice daily and Namenda xr 28 mg daily. What else can I do to get her blood pressure down to normal?
Brief Answer:
continue with these medicine
Detailed Answer:
Hi,
Welcome.
This is Dr Sameer, cardiologist.
Bp of around 200 is definitely very high.
As she is already taking Losartan(Cozaar) 100mg, Atenolol 50mg & Amlodipine (Norvasc) 5mg, she should continue with these medicine at present.
It is not advisable to add a lot of antihypertensive medication at one time. It can sudden fall in bp.
So continue with these medication & let their action come. Monitor her bp regularly.
If you still see her bp to be high, you can give 5mg of extra Tab Norvasc (Amlodipine) after discussing it with your GP.
Avoid taking Clonidine because it will decrease the bp for the moment but its withdrawal causes reflex hypertension & now the bp become more than what it earlier was. So avoid taking it.
Also decrease salt intake to minimum to stabilize the bp.
Thanks & take care
continue with these medicine
Detailed Answer:
Hi,
Welcome.
This is Dr Sameer, cardiologist.
Bp of around 200 is definitely very high.
As she is already taking Losartan(Cozaar) 100mg, Atenolol 50mg & Amlodipine (Norvasc) 5mg, she should continue with these medicine at present.
It is not advisable to add a lot of antihypertensive medication at one time. It can sudden fall in bp.
So continue with these medication & let their action come. Monitor her bp regularly.
If you still see her bp to be high, you can give 5mg of extra Tab Norvasc (Amlodipine) after discussing it with your GP.
Avoid taking Clonidine because it will decrease the bp for the moment but its withdrawal causes reflex hypertension & now the bp become more than what it earlier was. So avoid taking it.
Also decrease salt intake to minimum to stabilize the bp.
Thanks & take care
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Vaishalee Punj
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