When did you stop taking medication for High Blood Pressure?

[FamilyGuyNJ 123]

I read a story where the patient was told to stop taking his medicine for High Blood Pressure as soon as the SVG procedure was performed. Is this the norm? Who makes that call? Is it the surgeon or your primary care physician? If you continued to take medication for HBP, how long until you stopped? Was the dosage decreased over time? Maybe you made the decision on your own because you monitored your blood pressure and saw it was dropping?

[OKCPirate 5,323]

My doc tapered me off over a week two weeks following surgery. I have not needed them since...and I like it.

[Middus 491]

Wait for your doc to taper them off. I am still on mine pending assessment. It gets a bit low sometimes so I actively monitor it, and always on the lookout for signs of hypotension.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Middus

[heidikat72 935]

my surgeon had me stop immediately post op - but at my two week appointment my bp was very high and the swelling in my legs was so bad i was in pain (one of my 2 bp meds contained a diuretic). so i started them back up

at about 6 weeks post op i needed to lower the dosage on the main med (valsartan hctz) since i was having dizzy spells. about 4 weeks after that, i stopped that med altogether (again because of major dizzy spells and my blood pressure dropping very low at times). But I stayed on the 2mg doxazosin.

interestingly, i had an appointment with my primary doc this morning and at almost 7 months post op, i was able to cut out the doxazosin as well - my bottom number on my bp has been periodically dropping into the 50's some days. So as of this morning - no more bp meds at all and no longer have a diagnosis of hypertension.

the decision should be a joint decision with your surgeon and primary doc. and you should be monitoring very closely - your bp will start to change very quickly post op. i had some very scary near blackout moments and had not expected the drastic change to happen that soon post op.

edited to add that each adjustment was made with my medical team

Edited January 12, 2017 by heidikat72

[thunder32 65]

Was off all my meds by 1 month post open visit....and haven't looked back....love it...that was one of my NSV!!!!

thunder32

[barcelona37 8]

After surgery The surgeon took me off Amlodipine and halved my Losartan dose. At my 1 week post op appointment he said i should be able to go off that too in a couple months. I also stopped Metformin for diabetes right after surgery.

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[savyourdvine1 110]

Primary Care Doc should make that call. That's way you must keep all your Doctor's in the loop.

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[theantichick 2,204]

I had only been on BP meds for a few months before surgery. After surgery, I kept a close eye on my BP and about a week after surgery my BP was getting low at the same time I was getting lightheaded, so I stopped the most recent med (I was on 2 different ones) per my primary doc's instructions. About a month after, I was having low BP again so we stopped the other one.

[FamilyGuyNJ 123]

Lots of good info. Thanks so much to you all. I meet with my primary care physician tomorrow to get my pre-surgery testing done, so I'll have this conversation with him as well.