My BP was not extremely high.....140/80 the started me on a dieretic/blood pressure med called hydrochlorothyazide but not a very high dosage. I take 10 mg a day. I have noticed a difference within the first 2 weeks. my bp is right now 110/70 to 120/70. My nephrologist told me optimally he would like to keep my bp at 100/60. Im almost there. I know that there are natural ways to control bp like weight control and excercise and relaxation. Unfortunatley most of us will have to be on bp meds before its all said and done.

sorry normal bp to my knowledge should be around 110/70. Any 10 point rise in the bottom number and any 20 point rise in the top number increases the risk of heart disease/kidney disease. LOL but we dont have to worry about risk of that:)

I am on 10 mg benazepral for my bp. The dr said it is mainly for preventive. Because when I have alot of pain, my bp goes up very high. The bp med keep it stablize. I average 120/80.
P.S. I get chew out by drs. and nurses for not taking my pain med cuz my bp would be very high. It can go up to 180/100.

my bp was high 160/130 most days now i am on ramipril 2.5mg amalodipine 10 mg and 80 mg fruisamide and simvastatin 20mg now i am 110/85 which is good 4 me

i am on atenenol, as well as my 16 yr old son.........it has signifigantly kept my BP down........normal is about 120/80.........mine was running 180/120.........way to high......PKD and HBP come hand in hand........if you dont treat the high BP, you will damage the kidneys even more............I know that exercise helps(easier said than done for me) and quitting smoking(if u do.........I do, and it is hard to quit)

what is normal BP as my husband is on Avalide or Irbesartan/Hydrochlorothiazide 150mg/2.5mg?

My BP is 130/70, which is pretty good. It took a while and trying a lot of different meds to get it there. I take 2 Lotrel 5-20 and 1 Maxzide 75-50 every morning. As well as potassium. Plus my pain meds.

ive been on lots bp meds some work 4 a while and others give me mega headache. my bp been high years and doesnt come down that much with meds. im now on ramipril and doxazozin.its still high but lowest its been for 2 years.i have developed allergies to lots of medication over the last couple years so my docs find me hard work at times ha ha. havin high bp can aggrivate kidney disease that already exhists so yes you do need the meds xxx

I lost 55lbs and my bp went down so now I take metoprolol (Toprol) and Lisinopril prn.. 110 systolic or lower is a good bp for someone with kidney disease and it also will protect the heart because as we approach dialysis or are on dialysis we need to be concerned about the heart more because of higher bps and fluid buildup. I've been on dialysis for over eight yrs. and too the access puts a stress on the h eart. We need to consider everything that will contribute to our bps.. Sometimes people with hypertension and kidney disease tend to blame it on the pkd and take the easy way out but more than often pkd isn't the only thing that affects the bp.. Smoking, drinking too much, and putting on too much weight can add to the hypertension!

Normal/optimal BP is 120/75. That's the AMA recommendation for blood pressure to keep the kidneys, brain and heart healthy.

I've been on different medications over the course of 20 years; the changes were made because the previous medications were no longer effective. The past medications include captopril and hydrochlorthiazide (HCTZ), fosinopril and HCTZ, irbesartan and HCTZ, then an increased dose of irbesartan when I started having proteinuria (the HCTZ was discontinued), and now telmisartan (only because irbesartan is no longer on formulary for my insurance. All have been ACE inhibitors or ARBs, which have been shown to be beneficial in PKD patients for both lowering blood pressure and protecting the remaining kidney tissue not affected by the cysts.

And yes, it's working. Alas, in my case (and perhaps because I have massive hepatomgaly, a huge liver), my blood pressure is starting to rise again and I'm not sure what the next option is. I'm on the maximum dose of telmisartan already. I suspect my doctor may start a low dose of a beta blocker as I also have some cardiac issues and beta blockers slow the heart rate and along with ACE inhibitor and ARBs have a cardio-protective effect.

If you have high blood pressure, it's imperative that it be treated. High blood pressure it the number one cause of kidney failure in the US. Alas, for those of us with PKD, blood pressure medication is usually taken for life until/unless we get a tranplant.

You already have a kidney disease; the last thing you need to cause additional damage to your kidneys because you don't want to take a medication. Please, if you have high blood pressure, do your heart, your brain and your kidneys a favor and take the medication. It will help save your life.

FYI for Vicky: Simvistatin (Zocor)is for high cholesterol; it has no effect on blood pressure.

I started out with an ACE inhibitor, Vasotec/Vasoretic, and then was switched to a beta blocker in the first year of my blood pressure problems. The ACE worked really good but I had idiopathic anaphylaxis (which means we don't know why you had anaphylaxis) and the doctors said the ACE could interfere with epinephrine (the number one med to treat severed allergic reactions), so they took me off. The beta blocker, Toprol, was okay, it helped my migraines, but I already have bradycardia (a very low heart rate) and it just made it worse. (when your resting heartrate is barely above 50 while awake and dips into the 40's when you're sleeping, having it go lower from a beta blocker isn't a good thing.)
Finally they changed me to Avapro, an ARB. I've been on it for 10 years and it has worked very well. I take 150mg once a day. My B/P before treatment was 160/102 and now it is 100/60. My neph loves that my B/P is so low. Sometimes I get dizzy when changing positions (going from sitting to standing) but it's worth the inconvience to have well controlled B/P.
Once you are diagnosed with HTN (hypertension) it is almost always a lifelong diagnosis for PKD patients. The only time that would change is if you get a transplant and then you should have a normal blood pressure. There is an area of the kidney that helps to control blood pressure, so when you have PKD and your blood pressure starts to rise, it's usually related to damage of that area from the cysts.
Hope this helps.
Tami

There's some fascinating research that's been done on the importance of blood pressure control in PKD patients and the importance of using the RIGHT types of blood pressure medication (type of medication is also important, calcium channel blockers are not our friend pre-transplant).

Here's the link to the article, Developments in the management of PKD: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2504069/ Scroll down to the part about hypertension and read it.

The bottom line is men with ADPKD patients with blood pressure readings above 120/80 have a 10 times higher risk of reaching ESRD than their counterparts with normal/optimal blood pressure. Women with higher blood pressure have a 2.4 times higher risk. TAKE YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE MEDICATION even if your BP is only slightly elevated or if your doctor prescribes it prophylactically (preventively).

Tami,
I'm with you; I loved Avapro (irbesartan). A bonus is it's easier on your liver than the other ARBs; it only takes one pass to become active.

Drinking more fluids will probably help compensate for the orthostatic hypotension; I found it helped immensely when I experienced that effect.

I'm not sure how my doctor is going to work in a beta blocker. My heart rate is usually in the 50s and at night drops into the 40s. When I'm hospitalized I'm constantly setting off alarms simply by sleeping as my heart rate consistently drops below 40...most frustrating as if sleeping in a hospital isn't difficult enough to begin with!

Tami, ihavepkd - Im on Avapro 150mg once a day. This has worked fine for me for many years. But at the begginning of this year they bumped the dose up to 300mg once a day. For 6 months I was feeling mega tired - I thought I was suffering from sleep apnea or something - but it turned out to be the higher dosage of the Avapro meds (according to sites through google it is not known to cause lethargy). I nearly fell asleep whilst driving to work on several occasions it was really scarey. I spent many hours at home in bed sleeping and at work in the sick room - sleeping. zzZZZ

I am now back down to 150mg a day plus Amlodopene. I also take Attenolol (this one is known to cause tiredness but its fine for me)

Just a warning to others out there