Any audiophile who is on blood pressure medication

Hi Andrew..I was wondering how many days you monitored your bp before the medication was prescribed?

As a pharmacist, I have really gotten a kick out of this thread. When you start talking healthcare, everybody has an opinion. Some of the anectdotal post here a hoot. What I do know about hypertension is that gone untreated over time, it will most assuredly shorten your healthy years if not your total years period. The single greated cause of hypertension is bad diets and obesity period. Get these undercontrol and 75 percent of the battle is won. This includes not only bp but high colesterol and includes type 2 diabetes. But we Americans love to take medicine. Do you realize if we took medicines at the rate most of world takes them , the drug companies would fold or at least be far less profitable than they are now.

Kltaki8.....I have been at this business since 1971 and have seen how the healthcare business has changed. We are basically a reactionary system. We in most cases react to sickness rather than being proactive before the fact. This is why we have basically bankrupted the healthcare system. We have nobody to blame but ourselves. Much like the financial system, it all comes right back down to the individiul. The system is a product of the individual. We can blame the banks, the insurance companies, the drug companies, George Bush, etc. but the real culprit is a lack of concern and stewardsip by each individual. We are gradually falling into a quasi-socialism that dummies down the responsibility of the individual. This has the potential of producing a lower middle class that while being in a majority will abdicate their citizenship do to the malaise and indifference a socialistic society produces.
If you think the banking and financial system is a big bite for the government, wait until they try to swallow the healthcare sytem

The comment by Cdc holds a lot of truth. When I first began practice in the early 70's, most health care was paid for just like your groceries. Consequently, market forces played the primary role in controlling the cost of the services just as it does in the price of groceries or any other competitive product. We took the first step toward a socialized system when third party payers started to appear in the delivery system. This divorced the cost of the service from the consumer. He no longer felt the true cost of the service anymore. With this development, over utilization has ,over the last 30 years, almost swamped our system. If we move to a total socialized system, the over utilization will force rationing which will affect those that need extremely expensive procedures and treatments. This has already started with the advent of HMO's but will accelerate exponentially as government becomes more dominant in the delivery system. This has the potential to create an Orwellian health care system which delivers care based on the perceived value of the recipient, ie, age,social status, etc. Sound crazy, just take a look at Washington right now.

Hi David12..I am a US pharmacist and I agree with your treatment protocol completely. It is very perplexing to me the pervasive use of ARB's. It seems like we love to make things more complex and expensive than we have to. With the graying population we see over here, I see a lot of overly complex treatment regimens in this group. These people are so over medicated, it is really pathetic. We really do need to get back to basics and practice evidence base medicine as you have suggested. Sometimes less is more. We in this country think medication is the answer to all of our ills.