Can cholesterol medication cause high blood pressure

Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs)

NSAIDs include both prescription and over-the-counter medication. They are often used to relieve pain or reduce inflammation from conditions such as arthritis. However, NSAIDs can make your body retain fluid and decrease the function of your kidneys. This may cause your blood pressure to rise even higher, putting greater stress on your heart and kidneys. NSAIDs can also raise your risk for heart attack or stroke, especially in higher doses.

Common NSAIDs that can raise blood pressure include:

• Ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin)
• Naproxen (Aleve, Naprosyn)

You may also find NSAIDs in over-the-counter medication for other health problems. Cold medicine, for example, often contains NSAIDs. It's a good idea whenever you purchase an over-the-counter drug to check the label for NSAIDs. Ask your doctor if any NSAID is okay for you to use. Your doctor may be able to recommend alternatives, such as using acetaminophen instead of ibuprofen.

Cough and Cold Medications

Many cough and cold medications contain NSAIDs to relieve pain. As mentioned above, NSAIDs may increase your blood pressure. Cough and cold medications also frequently contain decongestants. Decongestants can make blood pressure worse in two ways:

• Decongestants may make your blood pressure and heart rate rise.
• Decongestants may prevent your blood pressure medication from working properly.
• Pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) is a specific decongestant that can increase blood pressure.

What can you do? Avoid using cough and cold medicine that contains NSAIDs or decongestants, especially pseudoephedrine. Ask your doctor for suggestions about other ways to ease congestion symptoms, such as antihistamines or nasal sprays.

Migraine Headache Medications

Some migraine medications work by tightening blood vessels in your head. This relieves migraine pain. However, they also constrict blood vessels throughout your body. This makes your blood pressure rise, perhaps to dangerous levels.

If you have high blood pressure or any other type of heart disease, talk with your doctor before taking a drug for migraines or severe headaches.

Weight Loss Drugs

Some weight loss drugs may make heart disease worse:

Appetite suppressants tend to "rev" up your body. This can make blood pressure rise and put more stress on your heart.

Before using any weight loss drug, whether prescription or over-the-counter, be sure to check with your doctor. These medications can be useful for weight loss, but may do you more harm than good.

More Tips for Avoiding Medication Problems

Be sure any medications you choose to use are safe for people who have high blood pressure. These suggestions can help:

If you’re taking medicine to lower your cholesterol, there may be times when it makes you feel less than your best. Like all medications, these drugs can cause side effects. If they do, the problems are mild. In many cases, they go away after you take the drug for a while.Some problems, though, can be severe.

Tell your doctor how your medicine makes you feel. Often, there are ways you can handle these side effects and still get the help you need for your cholesterol.

How Medicine Can Make You Feel

Common side effects of cholesterol drugs include:

• Diarrhea
• Constipation
• Nausea
• Stomach cramps
• Muscle soreness, pain, or weakness
• Vomiting
• Headache
• Dizziness
• Drowsiness
• Fatigue
• Problems sleeping
• Rash or flushed skin

More Severe Problems

Statins are one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the U.S. and are known to lower a person's risk for stroke and heart attack. Rarely, statins cause severe side effects like muscle damage and liver damage. Even rarer side effects may include dark-colored urine, urinary tract infections, increased blood sugar or type 2 diabetes, and memory loss or confusion. It’s unclear why these issues happen. Your doctor may test your liver while you take statins to see if you’re having liver problems.

Muscle pain is the problem people on statins report most often. Doctors aren’t sure why it happens.

How to Handle Side Effects

Don’t stop taking your cholesterol drugs even if they don’t make you feel great. Instead, talk to your doctor. There are a few ways they might be able to help you feel better:

Take a brief break. If you have muscle pain, your doctor may tell you to stop taking your drug for a short time and then start it again within a month. The time off can show if your medicine is causing the pain or if it’s due to another problem.

Check your other meds. If you take cholesterol drugs and other medicines, you might be more likely to have side effects. Tell your doctor about everything you take, including prescription drugs, over-the-counter meds, and supplements.

Get a lower dosage. Your doctor may try to reduce how much of your medicine you take. You might also be able to take a pill every other day instead of daily.

Switch treatments. If your side effects are too hard to handle, you might be able to try a different statin such pravastatin (Pravachol) and rosuvastatin (Crestor, Ezallor Sprinkle), which are less likely to cause muscle aches.The cholesterol drug ezetimibe (Zetia) may allow you to take a lower statin dose and thereby help relieve your muscle pain, for example.

Consider OTC treatments. Statins may lower levels of a substance in your muscles called coenzyme Q10, and that can cause pain. You may try taking CoQ10 supplements to get relief. Another option, L-carnitine, might help, too. But always talk to your doctor before you start taking any medicine, even ones you buy without a prescription.

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