Lisinopril and migraine headaches

I have never taken BP meds before in my life. Began Lisinopril HCTZ 10-12.5 MG 1/day about 8 months ago. It seemed to have a positive effect on my blood pressure, however I had never connected some of the side effects to this medication.

For some time, I have had difficulty breathing, panic attacks, severe gagging coughing attacks which seem to occur out of the blue, many so severe that I begin to throw up in the middle of wherever I happen to be. I have had these attacks so severely that when they begin to occur while I am driving I immediately begin to get off the roadway as I begin to choke, eyes tear up severely, and the clear mucus type substance is thrown up.

It is horrible and very embarrassing especially when it occurs in a restaurant or department store. I do not sleep well as the coughing keeps me awake most nights. I notice lately that my eyes seem to be constantly blurry, teary, and I experience severe mood swings, fatigue, crazy thoughts and nightmares on an almost nightly basis.

I am so exhausted most of the time, even though I previously was very active and able to work in excessive heat, no more, I begin to sweat profusely and feel faint.

I live alone so am afraid of just dropping dead. While I have had migraine headaches most of my adult life, I seem to have them much more now and when they do occur, they are totally disabling. I had no idea this could be attributed to a BP med until stumbling onto this website.

Thanks to all for your comments. I am trying to get my BP under control through a common sense weight loss/ exercise program and sensible diet and plan on asking my doctor whether I can get off this altogether. I thought I was losing my mind.

I have been on Lisinopril 20 mg since
February. After a few weeks I kept waking up every morning around 5 am and felt my heartbeat all over the place, like I just had run a marathon. After 4 weeks, this subsided. Then I started hearing weird sounds in my head like a church bell ringing in the distance, this was going on along with waking up for the past two weeks every morning at 4 am with a rapid heart beat, a creepy sensation going up my arms and legs and getting cold. On top of that I was getting very anxious and shaky. My doctor seems to think I suffer from anxiety attacks and put me on Zoloft. I also start getting out of breath just bending down, tieing my shoes and I feel tired and shaky all the time. In the beginning I had the cough, that has subsided but I seem to develop all these other side effects. After reading all these emails, I will stop my medication tomorrow and see what happens. I might try the apple cider vinegar approach. By the way, my blood pressure went down to 92 to 55 most of the time and my doctors thought, that was great! I was under the impression the bp to shoot for was 120 over 80.