Any nurses advise me on elderly mum?

[LadySSofD]

Hi any nurses out there! I wonder if you could help me. My mum has been on various tablets for her high blood pressure and all of them have given her a really bad cough and flu like symptoms. The cough is really bad and it's wearing her out. She's had it about 4 months, since starting high blood pressure tablets. The doctor has tried her on different ones, but she can't shift the cough. She is 78. Do you know of any other way of managing high blood pressure at her age instead of medication? I think she'd try anything, this cough is getting her very down. Obviously she need to keep her blood pressure at a normal limit, can anyone suggest anything?

Thanks for any replies!

Thanks, gingernut, feel quite alarmed that her cough is meant to be less bad on these newer drugs! Yikes!! I guess they affect each person differently. Thanks for all your help, I'll let you know what happens on Tuesday. I just can't bear her suffering as a side effect of madicine that's supposed to be helping her . She's been unwell since this summer, we took her to Whitby in June and she was so bad with her cough none of us got any sleep and I had to take her to the doctors there (who BTW was bad - didn't even ask her what medication she was already on.....). Hope we can get this sorted.

The cough isn't supposed to be less bad on the newer drugs, it's just that fewer people who are on the newer drugs suffer from that particular side effect. So she's been unlucky. But yes, drugs do affect people differently, so it is a case of suck it and see IYSWIM. If she was switched to an ACE inhibitor it would not be a foregone conclusion that she would suffer similar side effects (although I would think it was a distinct possibility - that is just a wild assumption on my part though). Hopefully the GP will explain a bit more.

Thanks for explaining that. I do think she's been unlucky, but she's 78 and I don't want her suffering tooo long till she finds one that doesn't make her cough.

As she said at her age she needs all the strength she's got and these are sapping her strength.

The most common side effect with ACE inhibitors is cough. I used to work on drug safety for these and it is very common, so switching her to an ace inhibitor would probably not help.

Yes, I meant that I think it likely she would suffer with the cough if switched to an ACE inhibitor, it's just that it would not be absolutely certain. My guess is that the GP would try a beta blocker unless there are contraindications.

Thanks, her cough is really getting her down and preventing her going out and wanting to do things. She's by herself as my dad died 7 years ago and getting out is vital for her, so I don't want anything stopping her.

Oh well we'll persevere!

And thanks to everyone who's trying to help!

I think, from reading this that your mum started Coversyl (aka perindopril, an ACE inhibitor) in May and developed a cough soon after. Around 1 in 5 people atarting an ACEi develop cough, some worse than others. It can take a few weeks, possibly months, for this side effect to wear off.

You said that she changed to micardis (aka telmisartan, an angiotensin receptor blocker) about a month ago. These are a very similar class to ACEi which were developed and marketed on the basis that they're less likely to cause cough than ACEi. However they do still cause cough in some people, by a similar biochemical pathway.

Bendrofluazide is one of the oldest medicnes to treat blood pressure. It's a diuretic (water tablet). If she had pneumonitis - exceedingly rare - it would show up on Xray

There are loads of other types of medicines for BP. 2 things to remember

1 it's really important to control high BP
2 almost all medicines have side effects but these are often diferent responses in different people

Hope your mum feels better soon

thanks nappybaglady, you explained that well for me. Hopefully the doctor will give her something new to try tomorrow. Will let you know.

ssd, how did the appointment with the doctor go?

bump.