Re: what is the quickest way to control BP

  It just happened that ONE DAY when I went to the doc a few years back, when they took the bp, the lower number hit 100 for some reason and they flipped out and next thing ya know I'm on bp pills. 

This is a real pet peeve of mine with doctors. They are so quick to prescribe based on one abnormally reading whether it be high cholesterol, high blood pressure or whatever. There are so many things that can cause a TEMPORARY rise in these readings. Coffee for one. Yet they tell people that they have to fast for the blood test, but they can have coffee before the test. Well this raises blood pressure, cholesterol, cortisol,....... Temporary stress or pain can also raise these levels. This is why they are ALWAYS supposed to get multiple readings to make sure something is chronically high before prescribing. But too often then whip out their prescription pads either out of ignorance or out of incentives. Such as the 10,000 frequent flier points the drug companies give doctors for each patient they put on Inderal. With other drugs they can be given trips, TVs, etc. as incentives by the drug companies to prescribe their drugs. Then there is also the problem with doctors who are invested in to certain drugs. All of a sudden it seems that this is the drug the doctor thinks everyone needs.