Hypertension Medications Explained

In this episode of Your Checkup, we dive into the world of blood pressure medications. We discuss common topics and misconceptions about blood pressure medicines, and explore the major types of common blood pressure medicines, so you are more prepared for your next doctor's visit.  Join us as we unravel the mysteries of managing your meds and keeping your blood pressure in check, ensuring your health is always a top priority! 

Takeaways

• It's important to take blood pressure medications as prescribed.
• Lifestyle changes may not always be enough to manage high blood pressure.
• Communicate with your doctor about any side effects from medications.
• There are many types of blood pressure medications available.
• Cost can be a barrier to medication adherence; discuss options with your doctor.
• Don't stop taking medications without consulting your healthcare provider.
• Understanding your medications can help demystify their use.
• Blood pressure management is a long-term commitment.
• Using resources like GoodRx can help reduce medication costs.
• Always bring a list of your medications to appointments.

Keywords

high blood pressure, hypertension, blood pressure medications, ACE inhibitors, diuretics, calcium channel blockers, beta blockers, health podcast, patient education, medication management

Chapters

• 0:40 Warm Up
• 2:45 Common Medication Questions
• 9:38 Common Blood Pressure Medications Explained

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00)
Hi, welcome to your checkup. We are the patient facing medical podcast where we try to bring conversations from the doctor's office to your ears. On this podcast, we try to bring medicine closer to its patients. I'm Ed Delesky a family medicine resident in the Philadelphia area. I'm a nurse. And we are so excited you could be here with us today. I'd like to think of us as like a health class that you're not in grade school anymore. And the health class just happens to be taught by a physician.

Speaker 2 (00:13)
I'm Nicole Aruffo

Speaker 1 (00:29)
and a nurse. Do you think that's a pretty fair assessment? Wonderful. Okay. So we did say we were going to start off with hot takes.

Speaker 2 (00:33)
I think so.

So.

we did. I came ill prepared this week.

Speaker 1 (00:45)
That's okay. Maybe we can do even a follow up this week. the hot take. So the hot take is revolved still around crab cavatelli.

Speaker 2 (00:55)
And he made, he recreated the crab cavatelli that we had out to dinner last week. It was so good.

Speaker 1 (01:02)
Really proud of that one. And it came to us when we were shopping at a local... Is it a grocery store or is it a warehouse store?

Speaker 2 (01:14)
or Sam's Club.

Speaker 1 (01:15)
pub,

Costco, elk, BJs, just to give an equal opportunity to all of them.

Speaker 2 (01:19)
Well,

you acquire groceries there, so one could say it's a grocery store with hot dogs and optometrists.

Speaker 1 (01:29)
grocery store with hot dogs and optometrists. That's getting clipped. So I think, you know, we were looking at, there's two different types of crab. There's imitation crab, and then there's regular crab and darn it. think.

Speaker 2 (01:43)
Well, that's not two different types. Imitation crab is just a fish.

Speaker 1 (01:47)
Right, Pollock. I looked at it in the fridge right before we started just to make sure that I had the name right because they call it imitation crab and it's pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:56)
You should just call it what it is. Give light to the Pollux.

Speaker 1 (02:00)
Yeah, put Pollock in the spotlight.

Speaker 2 (02:02)
My pediatrician's last name was Pollock. Yeah, Dr. Pollock.

Speaker 1 (02:05)
Really?

Was he a fish?

Speaker 2 (02:08)
You know, I think he may have been in another life.

Speaker 1 (02:13)
of Descendants of the Fish.

Speaker 2 (02:14)
feel good. Cool. Wait, so where's the hot tea?

Speaker 1 (02:17)
imitation crab is good. The hot purpose. The imitation crab is good hot take. yeah, if you see us on

Speaker 2 (02:19)
Take

the

least superior.

Speaker 1 (02:27)
Well, and there's our intern.

Speaker 2 (02:29)
We got our intern some headshots this week. Maybe we'll post one if everyone's lucky to see it.

Speaker 1 (02:33)
yes, he...

Hard at work, honestly. Yeah, he's doing a lot for the morale for the group. So what are we going to talk about today,

Speaker 2 (02:45)
Well, today we're talking about medicines for high blood pressure. We already talked about hypertension or high blood pressure a few episodes ago. So if anyone needs a refresher, they can go back and look at that. we talked about what high blood pressure is, all kinds of things relating to that. And now we'll talk about specific medicines for high blood pressure.

Speaker 1 (03:07)
So even though all those wonderful things that we were able to cover in that last episode, including lifestyle changes for managing your high blood pressure, sometimes lifestyle changes can't get the job done. And you need other things like medicines to help treat your blood pressure. Because at the end of the day, we're trying to prevent heart attack, stroke, kidney damage, and other serious problems. And sometimes you need a medicine to do that to help you live.

longer and healthier.

Speaker 2 (03:40)
And so I guess we should say that it's important to, you know, with any medicine, in this case, we're talking about blood pressure medicines, to take it as it's instructed by your doctor, to keep taking it, even if, you know, you take it for a little bit, you're checking your blood pressure at home, and then you're like, my blood pressure is perfect. I can stop taking this. Like, your blood pressure is great because of the medicine. Exactly. And if...

Your goal at some point maybe is to get off of that medicine. That's something that you and your doctor can talk about and ways to do that, get off of that, maybe if that's a goal that you guys can try to solve together. But don't just stop taking it. I think that's actually kind of a common school of thought, just generally for not even just blood pressure medicines. think...

like the depression meds are a big one when people start taking them and then they just stop because they're like, I feel great. Like you feel great because you know, it's kind of like that thing. there are, which it's always so important that if you are going to stop taking a medicine that you talk to your doctor about it because there are, you know, plenty of, maybe not plenty. There are certain medicines where you can't like, it's not.

Advise to just stop taking them. Like there's a reason why you can't just stop taking them and you have to kind of taper off and like wean off of it before you just stop cold turkey. So take your medicine and keep taking your medicine.

Speaker 1 (05:11)
Yeah.

And we realize that there are several reasons that someone may want to stop taking a medicine. One of them may be an unpleasant side effect. But this kind of goes back to things that we've been talking about before, where please let your doctor or nurse know that you're having the side effect because there could be something to do.

Speaker 2 (05:33)
And there are like a bunch of blood pressure medicine. So like if one isn't working for you or one's kind of making you feel X, Y, and Z, like there's something else you can take.

Speaker 1 (05:43)
Right. And we're going to talk about them and we're going to give them names today and we'll talk about how important that is. Or maybe a medicine isn't affordable and it's something that you should bring back up to your doctor. It's very possible that when in the quick moment that a medicine was being prescribed to you, because let me tell you, medical insurance is complicated and maybe in the future we'll do an episode on the highlights of that. But medicines can be expensive.

And there's no way to read the mind of your insurance company about what will and won't be covered.

Speaker 2 (06:16)
Yeah, there are like things that you can look up if you kind of like know how to do that. But like if you go to the pharmacy and the pharmacist gives you your med, brings it up and they're like, this is hundred and fifty dollars. And that's too much for you, which like that's a crazy amount of money for a one month supply of a medication. Tell your doctor that because one, you might be able to just safely switch to something that's

less expensive because a lot of them are like, you know, especially the ones that have been generic for a while, they're a lot cheaper than maybe something that you have been initially prescribed or if it's, you know, you need to be on this specific medication. And again, this is for just speaking in general terms, let your doctor know that. And they might be able to do a little bit of.

discussing with the insurance company why you have to be on this and kind of make the argument of why they should cover it. And sometimes they will.

Speaker 1 (07:16)
Yeah, exactly that. Another quick tidbit or a.

Speaker 2 (07:21)
But

the pharmacy also probably sometimes won't always tell you that,

Speaker 1 (07:25)
Right. Like if something is too expensive for you, don't assume that you have to pay that. There might be another option. So pause because blood pressure is about the long game. So it's best that you can find the medicine that works for you that is the easiest, most affordable and has the fewest side effects to get the job done.

Speaker 2 (07:44)
There

are also lots of coupons online.

Speaker 1 (07:46)
Yeah, like GoodRx is a website that we use all the time to help reduce the costs of medications. That's GoodRx.com. So when it comes to blood pressure, it's also a little finicky. We talked about taking blood pressure measurements at home, taking them in the office, and we need the most information that we can get to be able to make the best decision for you. All that to say, your dose might change.

And things will frequently change until your blood pressure gets under control. And so that's something to try to be patient with, with whoever's prescribing your blood pressure medicine or managing it as well. And before we get into the types of medicines and what they are, this is a word on medicines in general. Please bring your medicines or at least a list, but ideally bring your medicines to your appointments, because then

your clinician will be able to go over all of the medicines with you and make a decision about what's best and make sure that everyone's on the same page because they use all of that information to be able to make a safe decision for you. Great. OK. So. There are lots of blood pressure medicines and we normally try to remove all of the jargon from these episodes that we can. But. When it comes to medicines I think.

as with the rest of this podcast, knowledge is power. And I think we can all afford to lean in a little bit and understand what our medicines are and a little bit about how they work so that they're a little demystified. And that's what we're going to try to do in this next segment.

Speaker 2 (09:35)
Okay, so the most common types of medicines that would be used for your blood pressure are diuretics, which are most colloquially used as like the good old fashioned water pill, an ACE inhibitor, calcium channel blocker, or a beta blocker.

Speaker 1 (09:52)
Wonderful. And now we'll take some time and go through each of them and some common medication names that you may see either in your medicine cabinet or be prescribed to you at the pharmacy for yourself, a loved one or a neighbor. So the first class is a diuretic, like Nikki said, a water pill. What they do is they make you urinate more than usual. The ins and outs of how that affects your blood pressure are not necessarily more important.

but it also leads to probably the most common side effect of I've pee a lot now, which sometimes people don't like.

Speaker 2 (10:29)
It can be inconvenient.

Speaker 1 (10:31)
It can be inconvenient. Some names of the medicines, which a lot of doctors and clinicians will use brand names, but these are the generic drug names include chlorothaladone, hydrochlorothiazide, or furosemide, otherwise known as Lasix. These are all diuretics or water pills.

Speaker 2 (10:54)
All right, Ed, what's an ACE inhibitor?

Speaker 1 (10:59)
So an ACE inhibitor or an ARB. ACE stands for Angiotensin Converting Enzyme Inhibitor. ACE. ACE. ACE is the place for the helpful hardware, folks. It's not the hardware store. ARB is Angiotensin Receptor Blocker. Just to scratch the curious itch about what this acronym is. These medicines are blood pressure medicines that

essentially work on the kidney to help lower your blood pressure in your body. It would take a whole physiology lecture about how this right, which would be so complicated. But the key piece about these medicines is that oftentimes these lower blood pressure medicine and they give benefit for people who have diabetes and heart failure.

Speaker 2 (11:39)
not here to do.

Speaker 1 (11:54)
So either or doesn't you can have diabetes. And this might be a great blood pressure medicine for you because it also helps protect your kidneys in those instances. Some examples of ACE inhibitors are Lysinopril, Captopril, and Nalopril. And some examples of ARBs are Losartan, Olmasartan, Candasartan, and Valsartan. All of these medicines are ACEs and ARBs.

Speaker 2 (12:24)
All right, our third little category, calcium channel blocker. What's that doing?

Speaker 1 (12:31)
That also helps reduce the blood pressure. It helps relax your blood vessels, essentially. And common names for calcium channel blockers are amlodipine, philodipine, or diltiazam. And within calcium channel blockers, there are two distinctions that sometimes are important to your doctor, but leads to different medication choices.

Speaker 2 (12:58)
All right, and the last one are our beta blockers.

Speaker 1 (13:03)
Yeah, beta blockers essentially reduce the amount of work that the heart has to do. And in fact, there's a lot of literature that's shown that beta blockers may reduce the chance of someone who's had a heart attack, having another heart attack, and has some benefit for people who have congestive heart failure. And so these are great medicines in those situations. And sometimes they're used in other ones too. Like sometimes people use it.

use them for anxiety, or sometimes people use them for migraines. They have different purposes, but the most common side effect is people feeling tired. And usually that goes away after some time. It's a discussion that you should have with your own physician. Common names for beta blockers that you may see are metoprolol with brand names of the same medicine being low presser or toprol X. Carvedilol

with the brand name Coreg and several other medicines that end in OLL.

Speaker 2 (14:07)
Okay, so we covered the four main categories of blood pressure medicines that you may be prescribed. Big takeaway is that there are approximately one billion blood pressure medicines that you can take. And if you are taking one, it's not working for you for whatever reason. Talk to your doctor about it because chances are you might be able to switch to something else. If it becomes way too expensive for you.

Again, talk to your doctor. You may be able to switch to something else or they may be able to get the insurance to cover it.

Speaker 1 (14:44)
And sometimes they can actually take multiple medicines now and put them into one pill.

Speaker 2 (14:50)
Yeah, those are expensive though.

Speaker 1 (14:53)
Sometimes they're covered by insurance, which is worthwhile. And this is kind of what we were looking at before, looking at the formulary where you might be able to see if two of your medicines can be combined into one. Sorry to include that in your wrap up.

Speaker 2 (15:09)
Wait, I had a third point. keep taking your medicine. Even if you're checking your blood pressure at home and your blood pressure is great, that means the medicine's working. Keep taking it.

Speaker 1 (15:19)
Exactly. awesome. So thank you for coming back to another episode of your checkup. These days, our website is live. And if you were able to type in your checkup podcast on Google, it would be one of the top search items that you come up with. It's a Buzzsprout URL. And so don't be shy and click on that. You'll be able to see our artwork, all of our episodes and their video players.

and you'll be able to access different links, subscribe on Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts. You now in our episode show notes are able to send us fan mail, which protects your own, it protects your own cell phone number. And you'll be able to just send us a message saying, Hey, I liked the show. Can you do a topic on this for my next health class or so? And if you dig around enough, you'll be able to find a link where you'll be able to support the show.

in whatever means possible. This isn't a free effort. It takes time. There's some money involved. And so any support that you are able to offer is wonderful. It helps us make better episodes for you and continue to put this forward. So we really appreciate you coming back for another episode. Make sure you subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Check out our website, like I mentioned before. And most importantly, stay healthy, my friends. I'm Ed Delesky

Speaker 2 (16:45)
I'm Nicole Aruffo

Speaker 1 (16:46)
Thank

you and goodbye.

This information may provide a brief overview of diagnosis, treatment, and medications. It's not exhaustive and is a tool to help you understand potential options about your health. It doesn't cover all details about conditions, treatments, or medications for a specific person. This is not medical advice or an attempt to substitute medical advice. You should contact a healthcare provider for personalized guidance based on your unique circumstances. We explicitly disclaim any liability relating to the information given or its use.

This content doesn't endorse any treatments or medications for a specific patient. Always talk to your healthcare provider for complete information tailored to you. In short, I'm not your doctor. And make sure you go get your own checkup with your own personal doctor.

Speaker 2 (17:32)
I am not your nurse.