Roids and High Blood Pressure

[Excidium28]

My buddy had a question

"I am taking a blood pressure medication to regulate my blood pressure and keep it low. My blood pressure is currently around 135/60, which is a bit on the high side. How much will steroids cause it to elevate on average? What level is too high? Do some steroids cause it to increase more than others? If any, which ones should I avoid?"

 

[solidspine]

I take diovan one pill about once every 4 -5 days, b/p is a ok,

how high, depends upon your stress, gear, too many things,

Mine was up there, (in jail) and passed out, dizzy, anyway diovan keeps it find, scribt is for daily dose, but once every for days is fine.


Oh yeah my bp was 220/180

 

[halfcenturian]

My buddy had a question

"I am taking a blood pressure medication to regulate my blood pressure and keep it low. My blood pressure is currently around 135/60, which is a bit on the high side. How much will steroids cause it to elevate on average? What level is too high? Do some steroids cause it to increase more than others? If any, which ones should I avoid?"

Dude, 135/60 is perfect!

 

[GoldenDelicious]

My buddy had a question

"I am taking a blood pressure medication to regulate my blood pressure and keep it low. My blood pressure is currently around 135/60, which is a bit on the high side. How much will steroids cause it to elevate on average? What level is too high? Do some steroids cause it to increase more than others? If any, which ones should I avoid?"

pharmacist

there are 2 modes by which roids will elevate BP in your friend

the first is altering your salt balance, which will in turn alter how much fluid is in your body (mainly in your blood, and between your cells). since your bodys cardiovascular system is basically a set of pipes (blood vessels, veins, arteries) connected to a pump (your heart) with a limited amount of space within the pipes, the more fluid you try and jam into your blood vessels, the higher the pressure will go.

the second is that roids will increase muscle mass, whether in the short term (holding sugar + water + salt within the muscle, which is why a lot of lifters look pumped all the time when theyre 'on') or in the long term (ie more muscle tissue overall). the more muscle you have, the harder your heart has to push all that blood to get it through all that muscle tissue (imagine trying to squirt water from a hose through a sponge. same thing)

now. the answer to your question is "it depends".

it depends on how well your buddy controls his salt balance (by using anti aromatases, anti estrogens, limiting sodium). if he does it well, there may well be no impact on his BP via this mode. if he does it like shit, eats lots of salty stuff, drinks lots of booze, doesnt take his anti e's or anti aromatases, then his BP may skyrocket

now if your buddy is successful in weight training, he is going to put on muscle, and so the increase from mode 2 is going to happen one way or the other. in the short term, if he takes mega doses of roids, he will get a lot more sugar + salt + water in his muscles than if he takes lower doses. if he eats lots of protein, trains really hard, eats right etc then he is going to gain a lot of legit muscle, which is going to stay around after the roids cease. how much his BP will elevate via this mode will obviously depend on his doses, and success at gaining muscle.

thats teh best youre going to get, because youre not going to get a "dude, his systolic is going to increase by xyz millimetres murcury and his diastolic will increase by abc millimetres murcury" from anyone who either knows wtf they are talking about or isnt a liar.

personally i view his 135 systolic as being a tad high for my liking. if i had a patient on medication who was still at 135, i would by tweaking or throwing in other drugs to drop it a bit more. im also not a fan of his 65 diastolic compared to his high-ish systolic, since you tend to get more problems when there is a big difference between the two pressures. i dont expect taht everyone have 120/80 as per the mid literature, but i like them to be similar, and low. less bullshit happens that way.

it would be interesting to know what kind of BP medication he is on.

 

[Excidium28]

pharmacist

there are 2 modes by which roids will elevate BP in your friend

the first is altering your salt balance, which will in turn alter how much fluid is in your body (mainly in your blood, and between your cells). since your bodys cardiovascular system is basically a set of pipes (blood vessels, veins, arteries) connected to a pump (your heart) with a limited amount of space within the pipes, the more fluid you try and jam into your blood vessels, the higher the pressure will go.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that as his muscles get bigger, his heart will pump faster, a well-conditioned athlete has a well-conditioned heart, a well conditioned heart pumps out more blood with each beat.

 

[mackman]

Interesting post to me. I am on 50mg atenelol(sp?) and run 125-130 over 80. I was running 140's and 150's over 80 till I cleaned up my diet and started drinking about a gallon of water per day. seems like salt and water affect the top number much more than the bottom.

 

[Bruce]

well this is just experience i am def not a pharmacist.
after dbols (russians) i went up to 140/110 which is very high. i usually am 110/70 or 120/80 which my doc likes a lot. it took months for it to go back down to normal after dbols but it did go down. after eq for nearly 20 weeks it had only gone up to 127/86 or some weird number but it went right back down in only a few weeks. my dad has natty high bp so i want to be careful, that is why now i will go hard, cause i probably won't be able to when i'm older if i get his bp. not worth it imo to juice with his kind of condition. your 135 is a bit high but 80 is not bad at all. just do some cardio, red wine worked well for me, off cycle of course, and lots of water and no sodium (which i'm not used to) worked as well. the first time with dbols all i did was cardio and the red wine and nothing was happening. i was red and my head was killing it was so high sometimes

 

[Excidium28]

My buddy's is on METROPROLOL ER 25mg
generic for TOPROL XL 25mg

 

[GoldenDelicious]

It doesn’t necessarily mean that as his muscles get bigger, his heart will pump faster, a well-conditioned athlete has a well-conditioned heart, a well conditioned heart pumps out more blood with each beat.

nor did i say it would beat faster.

your heart would have to pump at a higher pressure (whether by beating faster, beating harder, stretching ventricular walls to get a more optimal contractile length - whatever) to get the blood through all that extra tissue, hence the 'higher blood pressure'

mackman and excidium: both of those drugs are in the same class (ie they work the same) - beta blockers. they block one of the little receptors in your heart that are pressed by adrenalin.

so, to understand wtf is going on, think of what happens when you inject someone with adrenaline - their heart contracts harder, beats faster etc. when youre on a beta blocker, the opposite will happen - heart contractility and heart rate go down - so not only isnt the heart pumping as hard, it isnt pumping as fast, meaning that youre not pushing blood into your tissue as hard as usual (which is your systolic pressure - the 120 par of 120/180) and of course, if youre not pushing it into the tissue with as much force, then it has to come out the other side with less force (which is your diastolic pressure - the 80 part of 120/80)

anyway there are different blood pressure drugs. some work by getting rid of fluid and salt through urination, like diuretics. others work by changing your salt and water balance, like ACE inhibitors. others like beta blockers change how hard your heart can pump.

why do we give a shit?

- because if youre on a beta blocker, like the original posters friend, then dropping your salt intake will make a big difference, because your drug isnt affecting salt or fluid in any way.

so tell your friend that cutting salt is an option.

bastards. make me type. hmpf