Blood Pressure Meds - Impact on Cycling

[ElectricCelt]

[SIZE= 10pt]I take blood pressure medication on advice from my cardiologist, due to a heart stent. I have a normal blood pressure, so the medication can make me feel dizzy at times. I am told by my cardiologist that the medication is not for my blood pressure as such, but for to the beneficial properties of the medication.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE= 10pt]I am currently in training for a two day ride - 225km, but my legs are always tired and I do not seem to have much power in my legs - could this be due to the medication?[/SIZE]
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[SIZE= 10pt]What effect does blood pressure medication have on a cyclists performance?[/SIZE]
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[SIZE= 10pt]Cheers,[/SIZE]
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[SIZE= 10pt]ElectricCelt[/SIZE]

 

[ElectricCelt]

As a test I did not take my blood pressure meds 24 hours prior to my ride this morning - felt a lot better, but it could just be the hawthorn effect?

ElectricCelt

 

[Reid2]

Oh, boy. If you don't have high blood pressure, but your cardiologist put you on a 'preventive',

well, what is that medication? I am not much in favor of meds unless truly indicated.

Slogans:

Doctors dicker
Surgeons surge
Psychiatrists fail to shrink away
Dentists dent
Chiropractors quack
Neurologists enervate
Proctologists probe
Oncologists oink
Cardiolgists skip beats
Internists externalize fears
General Practitioners are Jeeps
Neurologists unnerve

(the above is part true, but tongue in cheek, as many doctors do much good, but
most of modern medicine is over-blown...imo. I have seen people die from over-zealous medicos)

My father was one (his death was greatly accelerated by aggressive treatment)
Beware of medicos and medicines like 'well, this is a good preventive' (doubt and ask questions of others online)

What is that medicine, anyway?

 

[Reid2]

Originally Posted by ElectricCelt .

As a test I did not take my blood pressure meds 24 hours prior to my ride this morning - felt a lot better, but it could just be the hawthorn effect?

ElectricCelt

I was on a beta blocker blood pressure medication.
It ended up putting me in the hospital for three days, with "angina pectoris" symptoms,
which were caused, entirely, by the incompetent MD who put me on that junk.

For me, with my typical "athletic heart", the beta blocker (the most common BP med)
caused, when I got stressed by an emotional and physical incident, excessive "brachycardia",
a slowed heartbeat, and high blood pressure (just what you would not expect).
Cardiac pain resulted.

I have elected to take no BP medication at all. I keep my weight low by eating as little as possible,
and exercise mildly, and have no real heart complaint. Am fifty seven now.

My dad went with "doctor's orders", was on a blood pressure med and "blood thinner" (warfarin),
and infarted at forty nine, was told to have quintuple bypass at fifty two
(which ruined his quality of life).
His father keeled at fifty six. I don't think I will keel soon. I happen to deliberately drink a good deal of water,
which I "reckon" is the best "blood thinner", and I do not eat heavy meals. To go to sleep on a very full stomach,
is often the last meal for an older man, especially if he was drinking too. That is the pattern I've noticed in cases
of dying while sleeping, a common exit for older men who tend to overweight or drink or both.

Will see if I hold up for a few years more. If I quit typing, you know,
"he should've gone to a which doctor."
I run from them now. I'd not let them dicker with me unless it were mechanical injury, and even then,
the SOBS killed my ninety one year old best buddy with a "needed" knee replacement.
It was horrible, what the surgeons did...it was just criminal, I think, torture for Ray and...oh...

Organ failure? Well, so it goes, hearts and flowers, too bad. Breaks or cuts?
I'd let them patch again and again til this tater is mashed.

The Final Diagnosis. O, Muy Triste : )

 

[Reid2]

Ask questions about BP meds. Read online.
Decide for yourself whether the side effects, real. of your BP med
are worth the trouble. Research and decide for yourself whether the
BP med's benefits come without risks to your health or feeling of well being.
Some meds are implicated (suspected) of causing "heart attack", but you must decide for yourself.
Am not a doctor. Have taken the great risk, just for myself, to not treat my former high BP.
I will be a fool, perhaps, but eons of humans lived their three score and ten without modern medicines,
"preventives". To be afraid of your heart can actually cause cardiac "symptoms", sometimes.
To read, to weigh the great flux of information available now online, should be every patient's hobby,
and do not become charmed by doctor's "orders", for doctors today are rich by selling services.

There was a death in the cycling world recently, a great man, who invented and made the (...oh, the name, forgotten at this moment) saddles.
You all can read about (his name??) online. He was a year younger than myself, trained hard,
ate well and liked moderate drinking, the good life, and fell dead from his bike.

Maybe I will too. I just won't push myself like I did when young.
Doctors of a century ago were sanguine about heart disease,
and managed to keep cardiac patients alive for many years, often,
by advocating mild exercise at most, and temperate life, and avoidance of worry.

People live and die. That's the fact.

I do feel, quite strongly, that we should drink quite a lot of water, not to drown in, but
to make it inconveniently necessary to pee more often than we like. This keeps the blood more fluid,
for, as we age, we =do not feel dehydration as keenly=, and our blood viscosity does thicken when we
are a bit dehydrated. Thicker blood means blood clots are more likely to form or to lodge, my notion...
...am not a doctor. Water is cheap and flushes the kidneys, and all, and does no harm, if you don't go and overzealous
and drown yourself, which is not easy to do, as nature tells us when too much is too much.

 

[matagi]

ElectricCelt, which medication are you taking? "Blood pressure medication" encompasses a number of drugs of several different classes with widely different side effect profiles.

 

[ElectricCelt]

I am taking Coversyl 5mg

ElectricCelt

 

[Reid2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perindopril

I just read a bit about it at the cited thread. It sounds pretty good to me.

Please, I want to back-off a bit, as I am yank, and though many doctors here overprescribe, imo,
most are good, and surely, in AU, like in England, the MDs are even more circumspect, sanguine and conservative.

That drug is probably pretty good for you. I don't see any terrible-possible side effects listed. If you feel well on it, well, OK, good!

I don't beat up on all doctors, and recall a number of fine doctors, including one in London, who treated me for free, would not take a penny,
when I limped into his office with what turned out to be a tourist's "march fracture" of one foot. Many doctors are just wonderful. "Get an umbrella round the corner,
and use it as a sort of cane, and also, it's going to rain again today."

This is what demonstrates good medicine work. I was twenty five and strong. I have flat feet. So what, I was a runner at that age, seven miles per day.
After a two days of hours-per-day walking around London to see the sights, the foot lamed. The good doctor did no x-rays or waste time. He observed
that I have flat feet "have you been told that before?" (yes, in the military induction period). "Well, it's nothing to do but favour the foot and enjoy your vacation."

 

[matagi]

Originally Posted by ElectricCelt .

I am taking Coversyl 5mg

ElectricCelt

If you were taking a beta-blocker, then the tired legs might be attributable to medication but not for Coversyl (perindopril).

A few more questions .....
1. how far are you riding and what are you eating before, during and after?
2. do you have rest days or are you riding every day?

 

[rgs3289]

I take blood pressure medication. I have to take it as my blood pressure is high. It is hereditary and without it, well, my blood pressure is out of control. It is low dose and it works. It is a an ACE inhibitor and a diuretic. Ialso try to be smart about my health now. My weight is down, I eat better and I get plenty of excercise. I do a fair amount of biking and some running. The thing that concerns me the most in my medication is the diuretic. On days I ride or run, becoming dehydrated is not a thing a want to happen. I have had it happen and seen other get dehydrated. It can get ugly.

So, on run and ride days, I either take the pill later in the day or skip it all together. It all depends on the workout, durration and intensity. I figure skipping one day will not kill me. The dehydration or something else might.

My advice then would be to experiment a bit. It is your body and everyone is different. See what works best for you in regard to your health and work outs.

Good luck.

 

[ElectricCelt]

I am trying to ride most days - when I ride in the morning it is 30km and in the weekend I will do one ride that is +80km

I do not eat before I ride, as I start my rides at 5.30 am and I never feel like eating and when I do I do not feel well. When I am riding I drink water and an endro replacement (can't remember the name off hand). Plus I will take a gel or two and a power bar. After the ride I drink plenty of water, an espresso and some light food. I do not sound very well planned do I.

Please note that I always start my rides in the early morning due to the heat up here in the tropics, in the summer we often start rides at 3.30am

ElectricCelt

 

[davereo]

The best advice possible will come from your doctor. Let them know about your cycling and your concerns about your meds. I would not trust a single poster on this site with my health concerns. There are plenty of wack jobs out there on the internet. Myself included.

 

[Reid2]

Originally Posted by davereo .

The best advice possible will come from your doctor. Let them know about your cycling and your concerns about your meds. I would not trust a single poster on this site with my health concerns. There are plenty of wack jobs out there on the internet. Myself included.

(a bit of fun, parody, now, so smile!)
YES, friends, mankind existed for its two score and ten (or much less) for millions of years,
until, now, the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, A.D. Today we have doctors of note,
and no-one dies under medicated. We don't hear of people dropping like flies,
we only read of them:
http://www.google.com/search?q=sudden+death+bicyclist&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a