OK, you got me started again!

[bassFishingWNY]

Our health? Take killer drugs , or go without?

I met Bobbi when I was about 35-years-old. It was love at first sight. She was a redhead and weighed about 100 pounds. We remained friends through the years--marriages, divorces, children and now grandchildren. The last time we saw one another, about ten years ago, she looked pretty much the same--still tiny and beautiful--but she had a "medical problem": high blood pressure.
But because of her physiology, Bobbi couldn't tolerate the powerful anti-hypertensive drugs. So she, unwillingly, became an interesting experiment in: "What happens to a patient with a seriously elevated blood pressure if you do nothing?"
I checked in with her recently and she's doing just fine. She's "50-something" (I think close to 60, but I didn't dare ask) and still has very high blood pressure. So if someone like Bobbi can do just fine without medication for over a decade, why are the health "experts" out there suddenly so hot and bothered to get even more people on them by lowering the already ridiculous hypertension guidelines?

I think that most doctors are forgetting (if they ever knew at all) that hypertension isn't actually a disease in itself--it's only a symptom of some other malfunction in your body. It's possible that the elevated blood pressure is a protective effect, enabling the heart to get the blood to all the tissues in spite of the disease, whatever that may be. But since we still haven't figured out what that reason is, most physicians just throw drugs at the symptom and consider the problem solved when the high blood pressure goes down.
The problem here is that just because the drugs have made the hypertension go away, that doesn't mean you're "cured"--or even safe, for that matter. People taking blood pressure lowering medications inevitably feel worse on the drugs. You would think this would signal to the doctor that he's making the patient worse, and that the pressure is elevated for some good physiological reason. But most likely, he'll just continue to prescribe away.

[Jim80]

The problem is that the health care industry is a billion dollar a year market and if they cure peoples aliments outside of major life saving operations they won't make that money . I don't think there are more than five drugs in existence that cure a disease rather that hide it's symptoms until your body can fight it off . Also another one of the major problems with prescription drugs are they are all basically poisons so in turn what adverse affects do said drugs have on your body after taking them ? I try to eat as healthy as possible mostly organic stuff and kosher meats and I have gotten sick twice in the last five years and all though i smoke, my health is on the ups you just have to take small steps to keep your body in check and most things can be taken care of without medication .

Jim

[BassinID]

Originally Posted by bassFishingWNY

Our health? So if someone like Bobbi can do just fine without medication for over a decade, why are the health "experts" out there suddenly so hot and bothered to get even more people on them by lowering the already ridiculous hypertension guidelines?

From the sounds of it, Bobbi is a healthy weight for her age, I think the dangerous segment of the population is those who have high blood pressure and are overweight. Also a high blood pressure increases your risk of heart attack, you can feel fine for ten years and then bam, so lets hope she is doing just as well as she seems to be.

[3dkicker]

Simple fact medicine's don't cure diseases. They help treat symptoms or assist the body in fighting the disease.

Constant high blood pressure is an indicator of underlying health issues. Basically it means that your blood is not circulating properly due to blockage or constricted blood vessels. Can you live with it? Yes. For a long time? Yes. But eventually the cause of the high bp will cause major damage.