Lisinopril and reply

HELLO EVERYONE....IM SITTING AT WORK AND JUST DECIDED TO RESEARCH THIS DRUG LISINOPRIL...BECAUSE I AM REALLY BORED....WHEN I GOOGLED THE NAME I CAME ACROSS THIS SITE.....OMYGOSH...I THOUGHT I WAS GOING CRAZY...I HAVE BEEN TAKING Lisinopril FOR ABOUT 6 MONTHS NOW....I ALWAYS READ THE INSERTS THAT COME WITH THE MEDICATION BUT I NEVER SEEN THE SIDE EFFECTS THAT WE ARE HAVING ON THE INSERT...I SING IN THE CHURCH CHOIR AN I ALWAYS WONDERED WHY MY VOICE WOULD BE SO HORRIBLE AND MESSED UP..I AM SO HAPPY I GOOGLED THIS DRUG...DOSE ANYONE KNOW HOW LONG IT TAKES BEFORE YOUR BODY GOES BACK TO NORMAL AFTER STOPPING THE DRUG....

I am a 62 yo female who was prescribed Lisinopril in February. Within a week I had such a continuous horrible dry, hacking cough that I trouble communicating with others. This cough was particularly bad during the night. I have had to live with water and cough drops as my constant companions. I can honestly say that I have only slept through the night once from February until last night. My PCP finally decided that I did not have a sinus infection and that a codeine based cough medicine was not the answer and switched me from Lisinopril to Avapro on Monday, June, 2nd. According to my PCP it could take up to a week for the cough to go away.

Update to my prevous 3/31/08 posting: I stopped the Lisinopril 2 weeks ago & resumed my previuos med. (Ziac), which gives me no problem. All symptoms are gone but the cough is not quite completely gone yet. The strange thing is the higher the dose my doctor prescribed, the higher my blood pressure went. It nearly landed me in the ER! It immediatly dropped to previous levels upon stopping Lisinopril. Has anyone experienced this? Since my BP was a little high in the morning, a different DR. increased my ziac doseage and now I am Fine. My original Dr. still does not believe my problems are from lisinopril and insists I did not take it long enough. I say a month is long enough for me to know if I am better or worse. I do not intend to see him again.Thanks for reply to previous posting.

I have been taking Lisinopril/HCTZ now for approximately one month. Since then I have had several side effects very similar to those I have read on this website. Thank goodness my husband decided to check this drug out because I have not been myself lately.

First of all, I have been experiencing sporadic leg pain with the sensation of getting cramps on my left calf that have kept me up at night. I have not been able to get a good night's sleep because of it. This started about 1 1/2 weeks ago. I didn't understand why my leg was bothering me so much until I finally went to the doctor and he told me it was a side effect from the Lisinopril/HCTZ drug I was taking. He told me that the drug was a diuretic that acts like a water pill. It makes the kidneys work harder to get rid of the excess water in our body. When that happens, we lose minerals that cause the leg cramping. He suggested that I buy over the counter vitamins that had a lot of calcium and magnesium in it, as well as increase my levels of potassium. So, any of you that are having this problem, it is a side effect of this pill.

Other side effects that I have experienced are: stomach bloating and gas. Yesterday, my stomach bloated up so much I looked like I was six months pregnant carrying triplets! I have never looked this way before and it really depressed me. I looked absolutely awful! Furthermore, I noticed I am beginning to gain weight and inches. Although I am overweight, I was not putting on any weight or inches at all. I have been maintaining my same weight or less for years. Yet, since I have been on the drug for about one month, I have noticed the weight gain and my clothes are fitting tighter all over.

Finally, I have been more irritable and feel run down. Probably from the lack of sleep from the leg pain at night; but also from the hot flashes I have been experiencing within the last week or so. Although I am 50 years old, I have not experienced any hot flashes until now. They are so bad, I feel like I'm burning up inside. I have to open up the window or turn on the fan at night although it is cold in the room. This is also a new symptom I have never had before.

After reading other people's side effects on this website, I am convinced that I am going to stop this drug cold turkey. I was fine before and why try and fix something that doesn't need fixing? Doctors tell me that it is a preventative measure to getting a stroke or heart attack. I believe many doctors scare us into believing that we can die someday if we don't take it and that is pretty scary. But check things out first.

Thank God my husband did some research on this drug and found this website. It convinced me that I wasn't alone and this drug is really bad for you. I plan to go back to normal and watch my weight, eat healthy, exercise, and monitor my blood pressure instead. Not to mention, my blood pressure is only borderline from being normal. So, why risk it?

Martha G.

I am a reasonably healthy 57 year old male, 6' 1", 220 lbs. I started taking Lisinopril 10mg about 1 year old for HPB. My BP was all over the chart, but averaged at about 160/80. After being on Lisinopril for about 1 week, I noticed that my BP would be about 130/70 in the mornings, but jump back up to about 150/75 in the evenings. I have never achieved the 120/70 range that others talk about. It was also at this time that I developed the tickle and dry cough. I lose sleep by waking up coughing. The cough also comes on at any time, day or night. Sometimes I cough until I feel my head is going to explode. I never cough up anything. Always dry.

Over the last year, I have had other side effects that have come and gone and come back again. Among them have been itchy skin, numbness in fingers and toes, chest pains (EKG's and stress tests were fine), stomach pains, back pain, jaw pain, pounding heartbeat, racing heartbeat, loss of sex drive, erectile dysfunction, vivid dreams (when I sleep), feelings of dread and recurring thoughts of something happening to family members.

Since I do not have any prescription coverage in my insurance, I was happy to find a $4.00 drug, but now that the refills have run out, I think that I will ask the doctor for something else.

My doctor put me on Lisinopril (10 mg) a week ago. On the third day, I felt fatigue, had a cough, entire body soreness, felt feverish, with flu symptoms. My doctor told me to stop taking it for three or four days and start it up again. I did. I felt better, especially on my forth day. I started it up again on a Monday and still felt okay, but the fatigue returned. Today, which is Saturday, I woke up feeling great. I didn't take the Lisinopril until noon time and from then on I have felt very tired. I laid down for six hours, slept two. I still have the cough and have decided to take the Lisinopril at night so that I may sleep better. I go back to my doctor the 11th of October and will let you all know how that turned out.

Has any woman ever experienced side effects that could be confused with perimenopause or menopausal symptoms?

Glad to find your site. I have been on Lisiopril for 2 years (ever since my Insurance stopped paying for my Aceon and I had to have a substitute drug for blood pressure control). I have had increasing cough and horseness for the past 12 months to the point that I now have 24 hour symptoms! I also have been having leg cramps at night the past few months.
I will stop Lisinopril TODAY. Plan to monitor my blood pressure and see what happens. Does anyone see any problem with doing this?????

I too was prescribed this horrible medication. I was to the point where I thought I had lung cancer or throat cancer. The coughing was horrible. I am a Supervisor and every time I talked to one of my workers I would break out in this horrible cough. I also had the night sweats, horrible dreams and weakness. Thank God for this website. I stopped taking this poison two weeks ago and the coughing is starting to subside, along with the weakness and fatigue. I will never take this medication again. Thanks for the website and the wonderful postings. I think if I had continued on this drug it would have killed me. Sherry in FL

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I've only been on 10 mg of Lisinopril for 30 days and have been experiencing a severe dry cough. To the point I missed work today because I was up all night coughing. I didn't attribute the cough to this drug until reading about it on the net this morning. I have a Dr.'s appt tomorrow and plan on getting off of it. I have very mild high blood pressure. When i went to another site a cough was NOT listed as a side effect. I wish I had dug deeper. Glad I'm not crazy too!

My main problem with Lisinopril is the coughing. Coughing, coughing. coughing. I will be fine for 2 to 3 hours and then start with this awful cough. People will actually turn away from me if I am out shopping and a cough begins. I presume they believe it is contagious. Sometimes I end up vomiting and I cannot catch my breath. Coughing at night is really a problem because of lack of sleep. Doctors believe my cough is due to allergies because I have post nasal drip. However, none of the medications they have given me stop the coughing. I never had this problem until I began taking Lisinopril. Lisinopril is my first Blood Pressure medication.

I have only been on lisinopril for 3 days. Ditto with the cough, stomach pains and dizziness as well as feeling like I am moving in slow motion. Was wondering about the cough as it has been driving me crazy and was very surprised to see so many others state the same thing and have it attributed to lisinopril. thanks to all for your comments.

Hi! This is a reply to the last two guests. I logged in about a year ago as a guest and reported the same symptoms after taking this drug for one month. I developed anxiety and depression and was a mess. I was about to start taking an SSRI when I began to make the connection between the mood symptoms and changing from diovan to lisinopril. I switched back to diovan and felt better within just a few days. I am a mental health professional myself, but a psychiatrist also agreed with my conclusion that the mood changes were most likely a reaction to the lisinopril. We ruled out other possible explanations. It's now been a year, and I still have not needed an SSRI. Of course each person is different, but it appears that some people react strongly to this medication. Hope that helped. :)

I have been taking Lisinopril for some years now. First 5mg daily, then 10mg. I suffer from white coat syndrome i.e. my B.P soars when I get it taken at the doctor's. It has been as high as 198/122. I bought a B.P measure - the sort where you wrap a cuff round your arm. My husband has learnt how to take my B.P. & it is now usually around 120/70.
As far as side effects go I have these: cough; depression; anxiety; weight gain; hair thinning; memory loss; searching for words. ice cold feet, head sweats. I am 59 and don't know how many of these symptoms I would be showing anyway. A lot of women of my age who are not on lisinopril have thinning hair, gain weight and forget words. They also have hot flushes. This is the trouble you don't know exactly whether it's the drugs or not. anybody want to reply to this?