Blood Pressure

I'd like to venture some thoughts on the subject of blood pressure, which I know is a huge concern with many people as they get older. We had never had problems with it in my immediate family until my mom had an accident and fell down the stairs about 5 years ago (no broken bones, thank goodness - even though she fell on a concrete floor). When they examined her at our local hospital they found her blood pressure was up and prescribed medication for it.

I picked up the medication from the pharmacy on the way home and once mom was settled I opened the packet. The first thing that caught my eye was a notice on the pack that said "DO NOT DISCONTINUE THIS MEDICATION".

Alarm bells went off in my head immediately. I rang the clinic to check up and the receptionist said, "Yes, once you are on that medication you have to stay on it" - more and even louder alarm bells.

I got another appointment with the doctor and asked him if I could try to treat this naturally. He went rather red in the face, and asked me what I wanted to use. I told him I had experience in alternative remedies and I wanted to try her on Garlic and Hawthorne capsules. Rather grudgingly, he agreed to let me have a 3 months window to trial it.

Well, the upshot was that the hospital forgot about it, I put her on Garlic and Hawthorne capsules, and some six months later when a District Nurse was here we checked her blood pressure and it was found to be completly NORMAL. That would have been about 4 years before she died, and from then on, what with the visiting nurses and her admissions to hospital she had a pretty regular check kept on that blood pressure - and it remained normal until her final admission, at which time it was "slightly elevated, but nothing to worry about."

I have to add, that we do live on a healthy diet - for those blood pressure sufferers who are not adjusting their diet and don’t plan to, PLEASE don’t expect any kind of supplement to work a miracle. You have to also take responsibility for your eating and lifestyle habits. But if you do that, then taking the right supplements can help you greatly.

I have a friend who owned a service station and garage. One day, because of the extreme black circles around her eyes, I felt concerned enough as I filled my tank to ask her if she had problems with her kidneys and she said yes - it was her blood pressure medication. She was in her early 50s.

Now I ask you - how many people are put on medication and kept on it for the rest of their lives - medication that causes side effects of this magnitude? It bears thinking about. I am not a doctor and I would hate to look like I am advising people, but my own mother is a case in point. At 94/95 years old whenever she went in for Respite Care for a week a month she was the only elderly person in our small rest home and hospital complex who was not on medication of some kind - and in most cases there was medication upon medication to stop the side effects of this or that drug. Stacks of pills. Stacks of chemicals. I used to watch the meds trolley doing its rounds and shudder. I was grateful my mother wasn't part of it. And frankly, I'm inclined to think that's one reason she lived as long as she did.

People actually seem to use medication as a badge of honour. "Oh yes, now they've got me on XXX." Or, "They've just changed my medication again to YYY." Hmmmm...

Pharmaceutical drugs are fine for emergency situations. We have much to be grateful for there. But I recently saw a video clip of some dolly-bird rep of a pharmaceutical company on US television openly stating that her company wanted everyone to know that they needed her company's products to stay well. As if the human body requires artificial chemicals to enable it to function normally and repair itself if given half a chance. What rubbish - what arrant, arrogant, money-grubbing rubbish!

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Patricia

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