 | Joseph P. Galichia, MD is the founder and Medical Director of the Galichia Medical Group, PA. He is an internationally recognized pioneer in the field of interventional cardiology. In the 70's, Dr. Galichia studied in Zurich, Switzerland with the inventors of the balloon angioplasty technique for treating heart disease. As a result of his experience, he was able to bring this historic technique back to the United States where he was one of the first physicians to perform coronary angioplasty here. A noted medical spokesman, he appears on a weekly Newstalk segment on KWCH Channel 12 and has a weekly syndicated radio talk show on KNSS 1330 AM every Saturday live from 11:00 am to noon. Dr. Galichia may be contacted by sending an e-mail to service@galichia.com |
Health & Medicine
2010-03-01 08:47:00
Swollen feet - often related to hypertension
Answer: Most of the time people who take calcium channel blocking drugs such as amlodopine have some swelling, it is often manageable and it is unresponsive to diuretics. In most instances swollen feet and ankles in a person who is taking this kind of medication is not the result of heart failure or other major systemic problems but rather related to the drug itself. I’m sure that you are taking this medication to control your blood pressure and a side effect is simply swelling of the feet and ankles. Dyazide, the diuretic you are taking is a good blood pressure lowering drug but is not effective in treating the swelling we see with calcium channel blocking drugs. Thus taking a diuretic is rarely a benefit.
Most patients are worried that they may have heart failure, renal failure or kidney failure or perhaps a problem with blood clots in the legs. Speak with your doctor about these other potential problems. Among those, heart failure is the most common, but in the absence of shortness of breath, this is not likely the cause.
There are other calcium channel blocking drugs which create less swelling in the legs and you may speak with your doctor about a substitution with one of those drugs. The drug amlodopine however is an excellent blood pressure medication and the swelling that we see is something that usually is tolerable and it helps the patient to know that there is no other more serious underlying illness causing the swelling.
There are about 120 different medicines that one can take for blood pressure. I always tell my patients if they have problems with one blood pressure medication it is highly likely that another one will work with fewer side effects.
