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Blood Pressure and
Heart Drugs
by Dr Bruce West
From our book
Bypassing Bypass, published in 2002 |
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This is a reminder call to those
of you who are taking blood pressure or heart drugs. Once you start
a nutritional program using the products I discuss in Health
Alert, positive changes will begin to take place in your
body. If you have high blood pressure, your pressure will begin to
normalize. If you have poor heart function, your heart will begin to
work better.
Nutritional Protocol and Drug
Weaning
Within three to six months,
these positive changes will be so pronounced that you will most
likely need less of your heart or blood pressure drugs.
In lots of cases, no medication is needed at all. This is the time
for your doctor to begin the weaning-off drugs testing, which will
help determine if you still need drugs, and if so, what quantity.
If you fail to do this and you
instead continue on your usual drug protocol, in almost all cases
you will be drugged into more serious side effects.
Here’s a prime example: Suppose a person with normal blood pressure
were given powerful drugs for high blood pressure. It wouldn’t be
long before he or she would begin feeling weak, dizzy, faint, and
miserable. By the same token, if you had high blood pressure that is
now being normalized with a nutritional protocol—yet you continue on
your full-strength drug program—you could likewise find yourself
experiencing weakness, dizziness, and generally feeling faint or
miserable.
This scenario will be repeated
for patients using heart drugs, but to an even more serious extent.
Heart drugs that are no longer needed can be extremely dangerous. If
your nutritional protocol has allowed your heart to once again beat
strongly and regularly, it is time to get back to your doctor to
determine if you indeed need heart drugs any longer. Failure to do
this can result in disaster.
The Cure or the Curse
The irony of some of the drugs
used to treat high blood pressure and heart disease is that they can
cause heart disease and a whole host of serious, often
life-threatening side effects. For example, high blood pressure
drugs can lead to heart failure. Once congestive heart failure
occurs (usually after years of high blood pressure drugs), there is
little to nothing medicine can do for you.
If side effects from drugs lead
to congestive heart failure, your heart is no longer capable of
beating with sufficient strength to oxygenate your blood, clear your
lungs, and keep your blood circulating properly. The result is fluid
in the lungs, which breeds the perfect environment for bacterial
infection, leading to pneumonia. And what do most older folks with
heart disease die of? Pneumonia!
Are you getting the picture
here? The very best thing that could ever happen to you is that you
would need to get to your doctor to wean you away from medication.
Usually the only thing that will make this possible is a nutritional
protocol for at least a three to six month duration. In some
severely ill people, it may take from eight to 18 months before
medication can be reduced or removed. Also keep in mind that you
will continue to improve and will therefore continue to need less
drugs for many months, or even years. So, if you wean off some drugs
after six months, you will need to get back to your doctor in
another six months to see if you need even less medication, and so
on for up to three years.
Is Your Prescription Helping
or Hindering?
In all cases, weaning off
prescription drugs must be done with the aid of your physician. And
without weaning, you will suffer the consequences of severe drug
side effects. This is critical. According to U.S. News and World
Report, 400 people in the U.S. die every day from the side
effects of drugs. This is from drugs alone and does not include the
carnage from surgery or errors in hospital care. Don’t be one of
these people! Get back to your doctor after you begin to see results
from your nutritional protocol. And if you are suffering any of the
side effects discussed here related to heart and blood pressure
drugs, see your doctor today.
If your doctor doesn’t want to
discuss weaning off drugs, get another doctor. Not doing so could
kill you. For more information on how to deal with the entire
process, refer to “Prescription Drug Withdrawal,” Health Alert,
Vol. 13, No. 1. This can be a life and death matter, so do it now!
End of Article
It should be noted here, that in
addition to the side effects of blood pressure medications mentioned
above, Dr Sohan Hayre from the University of Iowa discovered that
patients with glaucoma who took their medications at night
aggravated their glaucoma, causing further degeneration of the optic
nerve due to their lowered blood pressure.
In addition to Dr West’s warning
above (“Is Your Prescription Helping or Hindering”), we came across
this in our research on hypertension medications: For years we’ve
known that medications can interfere with the absorption of certain
vitamins and minerals. In fact, it was theorized years ago that
certain medications might even help to deplete vitamins and
minerals. Well, we discovered a book all of you should have right
now called: Drug-induced Nutrient Depletion Handbook. Call
800.837.5394. The cost is $34.95. This book is a must (another book,
just a little cheaper but very still a very good book is The
Nutritional Cost of Prescription Drugs, by Ross Pelton, R Ph,
and James B LaValle R Ph).
From this book we learned that
drugs used to lower blood pressure deplete vitamins B6, B1, C,
Magnesium, Calcium, Potassium, Zinc and Coenzyme Q10. Except for
Zinc, which is needed by your immune system, all of these vitamins
and minerals are needed for a healthy heart. As you
will see later, this depletion of vitamins leads to Congestive Heart
Failure. So, in a world where the people in charge of our health
care (the pharmaceutical industry) profit from our being sick, we
see a logical conclusion. One series of drugs, which creates wealth
for the industry, leads to another illness that creates still more
wealth. If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.
Before we list some of the
therapies used to lower blood pressure that we’ve either discovered
in our research or were sent to us from practitioners in our
community, let’s take a look at how Dr West handles
stubborn high blood pressure.
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