I admire your drive to find answers- far too many people just accept what they are told.

Some of the fundamental causes of high blood pressure involve the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (which includes kidney dysfunction and a lot of the hormone imbalances)often because of an overactive sympathetic nervous system, endothelium dysfunction and atherosclerosis. From everything you have listed, my guess is your high blood pressure is merely a symptom of something wrong in one the aforementioned systems.

I would highly recommend checking out a device called the Zona Plus. It was discovered by the US Airfoce and got a glowing review from Harvard, not to mention my grandfather uses it. It calms your sympathetic nervous system, reverses endothelium dysfunction and increases nitric oxide in the blood stream (which fights atherosclerosis). Another device called the Resperate also works on the sympathetic nervous system but none of the others.

Good luck! Holler back if you have any more questions.

Hi, thanks for you response. I bought resperate when I first was diagnosed with the hypertension, but I must confess, I hated it. I couldn't keep up with the tones, because I breathe much slower than they recommend - so I hyperventilated. It drove me crazy, and it was, at least for me, a complete waste of money. As for zona plus, I believe it is a device where you have to squeeze it....My dr's told me not to do any kind of weight lifting since people push hard and tend to hold their breath. My thinking is that when you squeeze the device (which I heard was hard to do, do you think it is?), it may be akin to lifting weights. In general, I tend to hold my breath. I don't, nor haven't in the past, lift weights. I don't have much strength at all in fact. I have cervical and lumbar back issues, and when I was tested by a pain specialist, i couldn't even squeeze his hands. There was literally no strength there. I have problems opening jars and bottles as well. Getting old stinks!

I am concerned about whether the hypertension is in fact caused by renal artery stenosis. The initial test, the renal doppler, showed a bruit, which is usually indicative of RAS. The MRI with gadolinium couldn't confirm it for sure, but there was thickening in the artery. I thought that if the doppler showed there was a huge difference in blood flow to that artery, it was a slam dunk. However, when I got to Cornell, the dr said when he looked at the MRI, from one view it showed thickening but the other view looked clear. The dr's by me, hadn't even looked at the MRI let alone read the entire report (so frustrating!). But why then, would there be a bruit in the abdomen showing decreased blood flow. It doesn't make sense.

I had normal bp and this is so disconcerting, because it is behaving like renal hypertension in the sense that the numbers are all over the place. The diastolic never is under 100 (rarely I'll get a 99 or 92). If I take deep breaths in, and then breathe out, the diastolic will rise to about 122. It's nuts. Which brings me to the question, how should you breathe when taking your blood pressure? Should you breathe shallowly (which I tend to do) or take a deep slow breath in and breathe out (thru your mouth or nose?). It all makes a difference. I can go from 154 down to 138 within 5 minutes. So if I walk from one end of the couch to the other it will be high, and then i wait 5 minutes and it will drop, and then i'll take it another 10 mins later and it will go to the 140's...it drives me crazy. Then I stand and take it (the dr in the city told me to do that). He said to take the average of 3 readings, 5 mins apart.

He wanted me to start on atenolol 1/4 of 25mg pill and couple it with a 1/4 dose of a 1mg pill of doxysosin (since i reacted so poorly to the other 3 meds: norvasc, super bad headache and elevated bp 250/135 and had to go to the er; plendil - suicide headache with vomiting and elevated bp; and aldactone - bad headache and elevated bp). None of this makes any sense, and I think they think I might have been nervous and drove up my bp which is nonsensical. If that were the case, and I had that power, I'd drop my bp which is what I try to do mentally. Atenolol is supposed to work on the parasympathetic nerves and they also give it to people with headaches. I hate the whole thing.

But what really troubles me is that I have back pain (have since I was first diagnosed in june), and I asked numerous dr's if that pain is from the kidney. They all say no, but when i sit down, either in a car or the sofa, I feel a throbbing just on the left side of my back where the blocked artery supposedly is, that pulsates like a heartbeat. it is very bizarre. I don't want this artery to rupture (they scared me saying it was looped), and I would like to have another renal doppler to see if the blood flow has gotten worse. The RAS would be the only logical thing to explain why my bp is so high.

I've lost 30lbs; i eat healthy and try to walk (i'm guilty of not doing it much since i hate the cold). I've tried every natural remedy there is except for the pycogenol (which Dr. Kowalski recommends) - it is all natural made from pine bark and the shell of peanuts (not literally but something inside it) - he touts it as something super special that strengthens the blood vessels and has been around for decades in europe. Yale biological study also found that using extra virgin sesame seed oil or sesame seeds - for 45 days will lower the bp - you can't use any other oil with it. I just started using it 2 days ago. If none of that works, along with the capsicum, garlic, vit d3, coq10 and vit e i take, with l- carnitine and l-arginine (which relaxes blood vessels and helps the body produce nitrous oxide) then I don't know what else to do but try the darn meds.

I hate this disease as my father died of heart disease at age 69. it scares me so much. I have to laugh, as I saw a therapist in my neurologist's office (he felt I should talk to someone since this is overwhelming me), and she was so neurotic I couldn't go back. She would sit and before I could say "well, this is what I'm doing, and i'm worried about my family, etc..." she said "i don't want to hear about that, let's focus on you...." and then I'd try to tell her what I was feeling, and she'd cut me off - then go look at her computer, run back and say "do you feel hopeless? can you sleep? are you anxious?" well, uh, yea....then okay you are depressed and need to be on an antidepressant. NO I DON'T! I can't even take a darn bp pill, and you think i want to start with that stuff now? Forget it! These people scare me - those symptoms can be caused by anything! Low hormones, sleep deprivation, exhaustion - all of which i have. What a nut job!

I did buy some cd's by belleruth naparstek as she addresses individual diseases, and i like her voice....hopefully something will work.

You mentioned overactive sympathetic nervous system. Since i had a thicking in my adrenal gland above the blocked renal artery, i did see an endocrinologist who tested cortisol, dhea, hormones, aldosterone, thyroid, vit d3, epinephrine/norepinephrin, and a few other things, but all was normal except for my vit d3 which was low. i'm supplementing now to see if that will reduce the bp as some schools of thought think it has a lot to do with it.

I don't know what test i could have for endothelium dysfunction...and as for atherosclerosis, I was told that if it gets to the kidney, then generally there are blockages in other arteries. i had the 64 slice ct scan last year and it showed a zero calcium score (calcium is usually indicative of plaque in the arteries) and my carotid u/s showed mild thickening normal for my age....

Thank heaven for the internet, can you imagine trying to research all this stuff in a library like years ago???