I’ve got The Pill Book on order from Amazon. It is being shipped right now. I decided to order it before I started writing anything more in this blog because I’d like to know more about the effects and side effects of medications I might need to write about.

I’m really looking forward to studying about the various maladies and conditions. Hopefully this book will help. I have a medical book here at home, and the internet for more research. It should be fun to learn so much about the physical body and how it interacts with substances.

Remember, if you read this blog, that I’m not a doctor. I’m a self-trained herbal practitioner and energy therapist, looking for more information. This blog will chronicle my studies regarding medications and herbal remedies, and dietary changes that may aid various conditions.

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[Update, July 29, 2007: I got The Pill Book and love it. This has plenty of information I'll need for doing the research for this blog. Meanwhile on July 13, the day after I wrote this posting, a fire started on the hill next to the wooded hill I live on. Naturally it caused a lot of stress here. I put a lot of my things in storage in case I needed to evacuate. The computer was one of those things that had to go, so I'm way off-track on working on my blog. We survived just fine, as did the house. I wrote about it on another blog: The Forest Is On Fire.]

Hi! I’m Linda Martin, a 55-year-old woman planning to recover from hypertension. Don’t confuse me with statistics! I know few people actually recover, but I’m determined to have a healthier lifestyle and eliminate all high blood pressure medications safely and naturally, one way or another.

Already I’ve gotten off Atenolol, a beta-blocker. That was the first one I wanted to recover from because it was keeping me from losing weight since aerobics won’t work if your pulse rate is kept low artificially. I used Atenolol for ten years and gained fifty pounds because of it. Now I have to struggle to lose the weight as well as recover from prescription drugs that weren’t entirely healthy for me.

Another condition that affects my weight is hypothyroid disorder. I will be looking for natural remedies for hypothyroid (have already found a few) and want to wean myself off this and another hypertension drug.

PS - If you want to see me, you can click on the photo above for a larger version… that’s me at the Sluice Box River Access in the Klamath River Valley near Seiad Valley, California, in 2008.

I’ve been taking medications for hypertension for over ten years. I take two types of medications.

First I was prescribed Atenolol, a beta-blocker. My blood pressure was still high, so the nurse practitioner added Adalat, a calcium-channel-blocker.

At the time I was very stressed out because I was raising two young children by myself. But hypertension also runs in my family. My mother has it and my maternal grandmother did too. My grandmother had many strokes which my sister (a nurse practitioner) told me were caused by not taking medications regularly. I watched my grandmother suffer after a major stroke she had at the age of 80. For the next six years, until she passed away in 1996, my grandmother couldn’t walk or talk normally. Natuarlly this all frightened me, and I was determined to take my medications as prescribed.

Ten years later, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. I’m much more relaxed now. I moved away from the San Francisco Bay Area and for six years now have been living in a tiny town in the Klamath River Valley of Northern California. Also the children grew up. They are 16 and 17 now, and are not so totally dependent on me. My life is pretty much stress-free, and I’m happy.

These drugs I’m taking have side effects, like all others. And I’ve added one more drug - in 2001 I started taking Levoxyl for a hypothyroid disorder that was discovered when I had my hysterectomy.

I want to be meds-free! I want to be healthy again, and live a normal life, not dependent on the medications I’ve believed were so vital to my existence. And I believe I can do it. I simply need to learn more about natural remedies and get healthier by exercising more and losing weight. I’m about 60 lbs. overweight. In the last few months I’ve lost about 20 pounds (it fluctuates a little).

I’m starting this weblog to chronicle my attempts to lose weight, get healthy, and get off the medications forever.