I Am Feeling Fine. Why Should I Take Blood Pressure Medication?

— -- Question: I am feeling fine. Why should I take blood pressure medication? Most everything I have taken makes me feel bad.

Answer: Yes. That is a common problem I hear from patients. I feel great, but the pills make me feel lousy. I'm tired. I'm short of breath. My sex life isn't good anymore. The truth is that high blood pressure is the silent killer. You can have a very high blood pressure and not know it until you've presented with a stroke and then it's really too late to get the benefit from the medication.

So it's important to stay on the medicine because you should do it at least to help yourself, to lower the risk of stroke, to do it for those in your life that you love, that you want to be around for and remember that you can't really feel high blood pressure.

It's a disease that you measure, but it's pretty much without symptoms and so you really don't know if you're on accurate treatment unless you measure that blood pressure and check it very often.