Tapering off of Blood Pressure Medicine (Dialysis)

 Tapering off of Blood Pressure Medicine (Dialysis)

 

    I often would get hungry during dialysis as it was several hours long. At this new center, food wasn’t allowed. Eating food would interfere with the cleaning of the blood, they said. Now and then, I would sneak some pretzels into my pocket. I noticed other people discreetly eating small snacks too. One of the reasons I chose to eat pretzels is because during my dialysis treatment, my blood pressure would drop, often significantly as I mentioned. When I left the hospital, I was on several different blood pressure medicines, including Clonidine, which as I mentioned, was quite potent. The more I did dialysis, the lower my baseline blood pressure would get, which would require me to take less blood pressure medicine. My blood pressure was starting to normalize as dialysis was acting like a large, artificial kidney. I had to make a decision each time I went to dialysis as to which medicines I was going to take. I had to slowly wean down the doses and, finally, an entire medicine at a time; until I was taking almost nothing. I didn't always get things right. My blood pressure before dialysis could be extremely high, but after it could plummet. It was not an exact science to know how low it might go or which dose or pills would be best to take that day.