Anxiety due to high blood pressure?

[kef300]

Sorry for the long post but I was hoping someone could give me some guidance.

At the end of 2011, on a random september day, I felt like I was fainting, and my anxiety problems started. I was diagnosed with anxiety and put on lorazepam. I told my psychiatrist I was afraid of benzos so he switched me to Lexapro, an SSRI, which I took for more than a year, until last May when I took the last dose (I gradually reduced dosage).

I feel my anxiety had always been due to health anxiety, even though I've been healthy my whole life, I felt there was probably something wrong with my heart, sometimes I thought it could be the brain.

I felt like me again while on Lexapro, and felt safe to come off it.

I was fine afterwards, having occasional bouts of anxiety but managing to cope. On a random day, I took my blood pressure, for no reason, with a home monitor, and it was 144/85. I was so scared I went to the pharmacy, so that I could have it taken by a nurse there, and it had gone up to 160/90.

Over the next days, I kept monitoring it, while drinking coconut water (heard diuretics help) and flaxseed "juice". Over a few weeks my blood pressure dropped slowly, until one day it measured 120/78. That day I stopped worrying and stopped taking my blood pressure.

I took it again last friday and it was in the 144/90. Went to the pharmacy and it was 144/70. I decided to go see a doctor, who suggested I take a hemogram, a blood cholesterol test and a urine test. I had those tests done on last Saturday and went to see my doctor immediately. She made me wait a while in the waiting room, which made me pretty nervous. Finally we sat down and she showed me my results. Everything was great, in fact, my cholesterol was slightly lower than the minimum. However, she took my blood pressure after that and it was 180/110. I felt like I could faint as soon as I heard that and got extremely worried. Never had I been able to measure my blood pressure that high. The highest I had seen was 160/90 before that.

She told me to calm down and handed me some blood pressure pills. She also asked me to get a 24 hour Holter. She gave me a recipe for Xanax, which made me sad, since I want to stay off pills. However, she says it seems my emotions are making my blood pressure shoot up. Just before I left, she took my blood pressure again and it had dropped to 160/85. After seeing that, she said that maybe I shouldn't take the blood pressure pills just yet, as it seems my hypertension might be anxiety related.

As a side note, I've been very depressed and without motivation about my job and had lots of doubts about my career choice (Civil Engineering).

The point of all of this is that my anxiety has come back due to my high blood pressure. I keep worrying that there might be something wrong with me, or that a spike in blood pressure could lead to a stroke or something like that. My blood pressure yesterday was 138/84. Today after waking up it was 144/88. I've been getting stressed out about my blood pressure too much.

I'm fairly skinny, at least average weight (28 years old, 1.82 meters tall (roughly 6') and weigh 80 kg). We have a treadmill at home which I occasionally use lightly.

Any tips on how to deal with this?

[Speranza]

It's a vicious circle once you begin to worry about blood pressure. Mine is normally bang on average but it has had some scary spikes when I have been stressed. I have learnt by trial and error that it does go down if I trust it to, that I need to relax and not worry about it. I think about my dad, who was from a family with a history of strokes, and lived with undiagnosed incredibly high blood pressure for years before it was treated, and he never had a stroke.

It's not a constant anyway. I think maybe instead of mentally resisitng treatment and feeling sad/upset about having to take it, try to reframe it so that you are simply grateful those meds are there. My Ex has been on BP meds for years - he is the first male in his family to make it healthily past 60.

So be grateful it can be so easily treated, and practise relaxation techniques, get out in the country, take things out of your diet which don't help, and go for lots of walks. :hugs:

[RVP]

The worse thing you can do is keep taking your blood pressure, I think it even says on some of the little booklets you get with the machine.
I did my BP about 4 months ago and it was perfect, around 115/80, happy as a daisy then recently I took it and it was around 150/90 and for about 4 days I kept doing it about 4/5 times a day, and I would keep doing it until it went down to around 130/80
144/88 is actually high normal, so if you're feeling stressed that's a 'normal' range for your BP to get.

The best advice I can give you, and the hardest for you to follow is to stop worrying about your BP, try it again in a few weeks, sit down for 5 minutes and then take it.

[swajj]

I'm on top of my anxiety now. My goal now is to stop taking high blood pressure meds. My doctor wants to wait 3 months and if I am able to maintain control of my anxiety for that period of time we are going to slowly reduce the dose and hopefully I wil be able to cease taking BP meds altogether. Like you I started by having spikes in my BP. Then also like you worrying about whether or not my BP was up all the time caused more and more spikes. That's why I ended up on meds for it. My doctor was concerned that I would end up with long term damage from the constant spikes. I even worried about my BP when I was taking meds. My doctor told me to think about the BP meds working the way the brakes work on a car. So when I found myself worrying I would tell myself that nothing too bad woud happen because mp meds were acting like a brake on my BP. I would speak to your doctor about the constant worrying and how this may be causing constant spikes. She may think that you need to take meds to keep it under control and to help you stop worrying about it.

[Female healthanxiety]

Its weird - I wouldnt really class that reading as high blood pressure! mine is generally - 120/130 - 85/95 - my DR said its due to my white coat syndrome and also my anxiety - he tells me its fine!!!

don't stress - your one of the lucky ones that know about it, and your getting help for it..... you will be fine once you have got used to the facts x

[joelhall]

The problem with BP is it's so variable. Lots of things can change it - ironically including having it taken using an inflatable cuff!

[aidanbertie]

High blood pressure caused by anxiety by increasing heart rate and disturbance in blood vessels. When a person have breathe excessively hard and fast, means this person may start to hyperventilate.

Source: Doctors Health Press