First I will provide a little background and some history. I am 25. I have been seeing my current doctor for 4 - 5 years. I drank regularly when I was 20 and 21 but I have not touched a drop in over 3 years. I smoked for over 10 years and was at around a pack a day for the last few years. I quit with the help of my doc and Chantix. I have been quit for over 7 months. I have had chronic insomnia for all of my adult life so I have been taking Lunesta to sleep for the last few years. I do not like to take it every night as it causes a bad metallic taste and can sometimes cause me to oversleep but I take it a few nights a week. My sleep is still hit or miss. I have chronic acid reflux for which I have been taking Aciphex daily for a couple of years now. The problem has not improved and is no longer being controlled with medication so I am being setup for an appointment for an endoscopy. I also am having new sudden abdominal pains recently so I also have an appointment for an ultrasound of my gallbladder. I believe that we are on the right course for my acid reflux now that we are moving beyond simply throwing medication at the symptoms. I am hoping that with resolution of my acid reflux I might find resolution to my insomnia. I will keep my fingers crossed.

What I am worried about is my blood pressure. Every time I go in for an appointment the nurse notes my high blood pressure. I have expressed concern about it with my doctor and he simply says, "We will keep an eye on it." It worries me because my mother has a history of hypertension and during a time where she couldn't afford her meds she had a kidney destroyed by it. I am worried that as long as my doctor is simply "keeping an eye on it" I am going without proper treatment for what could potentially be hypertension and my organs may be taking on damage early in my life that is going to lower the quality of my later life. This has been an issue for at least the last four or five appointments which means between one and two years. My doctor said I should see an improvement after I quit smoking but that is not the case.

At my last appointment I expressed to the nurse that I am experiencing new symptoms I believe to be caused by my BP including my heart beating hard (usually slow and hard but my pulse will increase when I start to feel it which I would assume to be due to anxiety and dread induced by the realization of the symptom) and tightness in the chest. The nurse mocked me and asked if I had white coat syndrome to which I told her that I didn't create the high BP as they are the ones that had noted it on numerous occasions. She then proceeded to take my BP and after some prodding acknowledged that it was high. She quoted 150/90. The next day I went to a pharmacy and checked my BP there and it was 146/83. My mother is a nurse and suffers from hypertension and she says my doctor is ignoring my BP. I am worried about the damage that this could be causing and my insomnia is being made even worse then it already is (which is pretty bad) as when I lay down at night I can feel my heart pounding really hard and I get chest pain. I also experience heart palpitations which seem to occur more often in bed (though this is a more rare occurrence and has happened on a few occasions during the day as well.) Could some of the things I am doing to work on my acid reflux also help my BP? My doctor is concerned with treating my acid reflux and my insomnia separately while ignoring potential hypertension and I feel that all three could be symptoms of a larger or singular (primary) issue. I also feel like the symptom that is being ignored is the most important one of all with the most damaging of consequences if left untreated.

Should I see a new doctor or proceed down the road my doctor is taking me? Could the problems I am having be a sign of a particular problem? At 25 I feel like things look awfully bleak.