I am a 30 year old female who has been living on a medical roller-coaster for the past 11 years. I have been under treatment for a chronic hypertensive disorder since I was 19 years old. Unmedicated, my blood pressure soars, especially when I'm in pain-- the highest ever recorded was 258/139, recorded in an ambulance when I had a bulging disc. I have seen doctors ranging from an endocrinologist to a vascular surgeon and nephrologist. I've had a renal arteriogram that revealed no narrowing of my renal artery; I've had several CAT scans for everything from adrenal tumors to phenochromocytoma. I've had so many tests and visited so many doctors I've lost track of them all, and I'm scheduled for a sleep study in November. If I don't take medication, my blood pressure is life-threatening. Even when I do, the best I can get usually averages around 140/90. I've been hospitalized, monitored, tested and prodded to my wit's end, and nobody can figure out what is wrong with me! My hypertension has been reclassified as essential, but I'm not so sure. I know that I am overweight: 160 pounds, but my weight has varied between 125 and 185 in the decade since treatment began. I quit smoking, cut out caffeine, limited salt intake, etc.-- all the normal things one does when one has hypertension. The problem is that I don't just have ANY hypertension. I have scary, stroke-level, terror-inducing hypertension. The leading theory is that I have dead spots on my kidneys-- which are otherwise fantastic according to various 24 hour urinalysis tests-- that encourage my body to produce too much angiotensin. My body is always in fight or flight, and I battle a serious anxiety disorder (for a long time this was part of a chicken/egg argument) that most of my doctors assume to be a by-product of my levels of epinephrine and norepinephrine. I am at the end of my rope. I don't know whether to seek a 14th second opinion or resign myself to a lifetime of blood pressure medications that don't really keep me at healthy levels. My current regimen of diet and exercise is helping me lose weight but it's not helping my blood pressure and my dose just had to be changed AGAIN. Any ideas? I know that doctors aren't supposed to think zebras when they hear hooves, but at this point I'm looking for doctors who think centaurs.