My experience with blood pressure, as a young adult.

P.S. sorry for the land rant, there’s still more but I think this sums up what I can think of for now.

I don’t even remember exactly when I first got diagnosed with high blood pressure, maybe six or seven months ago. They couldn’t really figure out the reason, but my doctor kept saying it’s probably from being overweight mixed with genetics. At first, I honestly didn’t think it was a big deal. I felt young, unstoppable, and didn’t take it seriously. Then my doctor had me do a 24-hour test where my blood pressure was checked every 15 minutes, and the results came back really high—systolic around 170. She told me it was serious and put me on amlodipine, 5 mg.

At first, everything seemed fine. For a couple of weeks I felt okay, but then out of nowhere my heart started racing. I thought I was having a heart attack. I even started looking up symptoms online, which just made it worse. When I went back to the doctor, she told me I was having palpitations and sent me to the hospital. That’s where they found my kidneys weren’t doing well. It wasn’t just from the blood pressure, but it was definitely connected. After that, for about a month, I was at the hospital all the time—sometimes twice a week—because I felt like something was always wrong with my heart. No one could give me a clear reason why it was happening.

Even on the medicine, my blood pressure was still in the 140s and 150s, sometimes even spiking into the 160s. On top of that, I was constantly exhausted, and my left arm was always numb. The anxiety from all of that was horrible. I started researching on my own, talking to my doctor, and asking around, and eventually I realized that most of these problems were from the medicine itself. Amlodipine was causing it. People kept telling me to stop taking it, but I was scared of switching to something else and not knowing what new side effects I’d have to deal with.

The main thing that helped was realizing that the palpitations and feeling like I was about to have a heart attack weren’t really from the blood pressure, but from the medication. Once I knew that, I calmed down and made a plan. I started losing weight, eating healthier, taking supplements, and working on ways to manage it naturally. After a few months, I lost some weight and stuck to a better routine. My blood pressure readings started to come down. Now with the medicine, they’re usually around 115–120 systolic and 68–75 diastolic, which is a huge change from when I first started at 170.

It’s not easy dealing with something like this at a young age. You feel like you’re supposed to be untouchable, and then you get hit with something that makes you realize you’re not. But once I understood what was really happening and worked on myself, I was able to get it under control. My doctor still reminds me it’s genetic, so it’s always something I’ll have to keep in mind. Hopefully, if things keep going the way they are, I’ll be able to get off the meds for a while. Even if I end up back on them later in life, at least I’ll know I took control of it now.