high blood pressure question

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jrsygal37, I've been on meds for hypertension much of my adult life. I'm on 2 different ones than you, and have tried others as well. I really haven't had any side affects from them other than they can deplete the potassium in your system if they're a diuretic type; which causes charlie horses.

The danger of high blood pressure is that it wears out the heart from having to pump harder and the blood vessels because it's that much more pressure exerted on them. The top number is the amount of pressure exerted when the heart is pumping... the bottom number is the amount of pressure in between beats when the heart is relaxed.
Pain will definitely make it higher... mine was 230/132 when I went to ER with the start of bells palsy a few years ago. I had a horrendous headache that drove it up.

As gja1000 said, it's long term high pressure that does the damage and often people don't know they have it until the damage is done, so you're lucky to have discovered it now.

Good luck! And start taking them asap... you're preventing major problems by getting it down as soon as you can.