I've been on Lisinopril/HCTZ about 2 months, and am losing lots o...

I am a 67 year old lady who came off Lisinopril 4 months ago after 3 years. I had many side effects even on the low dose of 2.5mg!! per day. One side effect was that I was finding many fallen hairs allover the place, especially after I had washed my hair. (was scared to brush it). Now the hair loss has stopped but is still not showing to be thickening up visibly....yet?.

I am a felow lisinopril sufferer.

It is my opinion that most of the side effects from this med go something like this: The body doesn't like the med or its by-products (manufacturing or otherwise) and tries to do something to get rid of it. This results in a heavy load on nutrition, and in particular, on minerals like zinc, selenium, magnesium, copper, etc... As time goes on, the body starts running low on these nutrients that is uses to combat this chemical onslaught - they are being used up faster than they can be replentished through any normal diet.

So, not only do the directly-caused side effects begin to accumulate more rapidly as the undesired chemicals start building up , but, this now also means other systems of the body, that just happen to need those same nutrients, begin to suffer too, starting a downward spiral.

I believe that hair loss is a symptom of this. I suspect it comes from depletion of zinc and selenium among other minerals.

Therefore, in answer to your question, it i spossible that it will continue to worsen.

However, sometimes we make lifesyle changes that help - the body may tell us what foods it craves and the diet is changed to accommodate.

Still, the minerals are hard to absorb, and it is difficult to offset their tremendous depletion without additional supplementation, let alone getting off of this med.

Best of luck to all!

Thanks for the explanation......why is this stuff not investigated? there are too many people suffering severe side effects. Here in UK the health guidelines for new patients state.... put them straight on to 2 medications, then increase them later. Side effects dont come into it..
where is the human element. Lisinopril too is the cheapest to administer and the Pharma lot are on the doctors backs.........horrendous.

I have been losing my hair too! My hair dresser mentioned that blood pressure med. can have an effect on hair loss. I do not see it in the side effects for lisinopril. How long has this been gong on with you?