Blood Pressure Medicine

Well, guess what? Yesterday while we were over at Christi's house for a little family fun, I was sitting talking to Lynn (Kelly's sister). She is fighting a battle with breast cancer at the moment. She has finished her chemotherapy and is getting ready to start her radiation therapy. Anyway, I had had several episodes of coughing fits and Lynn said, "I had to change my blood pressure medicine because it was causing me to have coughing fits like that." Tina and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows and Tina said, "Come to think of it your coughing started when you started taking blood pressure medicine." I really never would have thought of a connection and dismissed it for the moment. Finally later last night I got around to Googling the topic "high blood pressure medicine causes coughing" and sure enough there were lots of web pages dedicated to this topic. Most of the people commenting and asking questions described their symptoms and they sounded just like mine, unexplained violent coughing fits, so bad you finally gag or throw up, sinus drainage, unbearable tickle in your throat, coughing so violently you leak urine and especially bad at night resulting in NO sleep. I couldn't believe what I was reading and then went on to read that the blood pressure drug that causes these problems the most is lisinopril. I went to check the medicine cabinet to see what blood pressure medicine I was on and sure enough it is lisinopril! I called the doctor's office this morning but have yet to hear back from him. I did not take my pill this morning and probably will not take it again. It supposedly takes up to two weeks to get it all out of your system and for the coughing to stop. It is so irritating as I have spent a lot of money going to the allergist and getting a nebulizer with all the drugs for it to now find out it is not my asthma at all but the blood pressure medicine. I am glad to know though and so is Kevin. He said, "I knew it had to be caused by something recent." as the cough started in early April. I started taking lisinopril March 20th. I don't think that is a coincidence. I'll keep you posted about what happens. In the mean time, excuse me, I feel a coughing fit coming on. *hack-hack*