ARTS & FARCES internet

I never had high blood pressure until I was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease in February 2000 and was hospitalized—I don’t remember exactly how high it was; but it was life threatening and I remember everyone having that look of “stick a fork in him, he’s done.” The nephrologist, following western medicine protocol, took all urgent measures to lower said blood pressure as quickly as possible. Too quickly, as luck would have it, as I almost croaked on the way down.

It must have been something like trying to steer a 1972 Buick in an uncontrollable skid. Turn the steering wheel all the way to the left, then back all the way to the right, continuing the sequence until you crash into something and stop.

For the last several months I’ve been having problems with my blood pressure again. This time it’s too low; the car is skidding again and the steering wheel is cranked all the way to the right. My blood pressure has gotten as low as 80-something over 30-something and I can tell there’s a problem because the medical staff asks if I’m okay with that same old “stick a fork in him” look in their eyes.

Fact is I’m not okay. I can barely hold my head up the day after each dialysis run. When I stand up, I have to reach for the closest wall, or I’m out. And forget about holding a cogent thought in my head; that’s out of the question.

Worse, I’m all of a sudden gaining two or three kilograms the day before dialysis. Previously my weight gain had been two kilograms—give or take—over the four days before dialysis.

Talks with my nephrologist are of little use. She’s blinkered by the western medical model and reasons that the kidneys control blood pressure and since my kidneys have completely failed, the protocol is that my blood pressure must now be controlled with medication. Lots of medication: 100mg of Metoprolol twice each day; 40mg of Lisinopril each day; 20mg of Amlodipine in the morning; and 40mg of Amlodipine at bedtime. That’s heavy-duty bad shit for the last 10 years.

The nephrologist’s solution several weeks ago was to reduce the Metoprolol to 75mg twice each day. That didn’t work. I asked her in which order I should reduce the medications (I didn’t want to crank the wheel all the way to the left, only to have to crank it all the way back to the right later): Lisinopril, then Metoprolol (sure, the only one I actually get a little buzz from), then finally Amlodipine.

Traditional Chinese medicine doesn’t look at single organs in a fixed location but rather functions of the organs (including organs that don’t physically exist) in relation to other organs.

My Chinese medicine and all alternatives practitioner started out by saying he didn’t know what was going on. That was encouraging. Really. But he had seen the weight gain several times before in clients that had strokes and gained, in one case, 20 pounds immediately after the stroke without eating or drinking anything. He reckoned that the cells in the membranes of my body had become addicted to the blood pressure medicine and were in withdrawal because I had started to reduce the drugs. As a result the cells had reversed their electrical charge and allowed fluid to pass through the membranes and presumably become inaccessible to discharge by the lungs.

I stopped taking Lisinopril on 13 March 2010, Metoprolol on 15 March 2010, and Amlodipine on 19 March 2010, reducing each successively before eliminating it. My blood pressure has risen moderately to 103/67. Tonight I will be two full days blood pressure medication free. I felt better yesterday after dialysis than I had in quite a long time. Here’s hoping Tuesday’s even better.

Next up will be weaning myself off of Clonazepam (1mg) and Trazodone (100mg) both of which were prescribed for myoclonus. That would leave only Sensipar for my hyperparathyroidism and Renagel for phosphate binding.