The Pressure Is Off

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The Pressure Is Off was Originally Posted on October 2, 2011 by

Recent events caused me to have my blood pressure checks. It had gone from “well-managed” to “WOW!”. (I was trying to quote some number of Starbucks in a town, but was unable to find a good list of stores per town).

After having me drop one medicine for a slight arthritis pain I was developing and added one to bring the blood pressure down, worked almost overnight. I can now report my last BP check was in the 125/85 range. Just before adjusting the meds it was 179/99. I can tell you though that it was higher when I first had my BP checked years ago. At a whopping 190/120 they had me sit with a nitro tablet under my tongue that day and would not let me leave until the medicine was taking effect.

Talk about being in stroke territory!

Anyway, I had since been taking my medications and excercizing alot (try walking across my farm even once) and cut out some salt, etc. I was doing pretty good until undone by a medicine.

The pain medicine I was on is called Melocicam and is a NSAID much like Neproxin and Ibuprofin.

This medicine states “Meloxicam is also used in the veterinary field, most commonly in dogs, but also sees off-label use in other animals such as cattle, cats and exotics.” People think I’m kidding when I say I have been prescribed dog medicine!

Pet owners know that many of the medicines we humans take are also used on animals. Heck, ask any testing lab :-)

Actually, we give a dog the same pain reliever used by hospitals for after operation recovery. A dog with anxiety gets the human medicine used for the same condition. When delivering puppies we administer the same drug to cause labor contractions and women get.

There are some major differences though. Certain medicines we take every day cannot be given to dogs/cats. Aspirin, acetaminophen and Naproxin are dangerous and may prove fatal. Then again, chocolate, macadamia nuts, antifreeze and other products are dangerous too.

It does not appear that avocados (at least the tons of varieties we have in Hawaii) are toxic. Just ask any dog out here.