September 26, 2014 – Medicine Experience

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Anchor lead:  Should you manage your own blood pressure medicines? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Many people with high blood pressure are capable of managing not just monitoring but also increasing or decreasing their medicines to keep blood pressure under control, a new study concludes.  Howard Levy, an internal medicine expert at Johns Hopkins, says there is precedent for such a strategy.

Levy: I don’t yet have any clinical experience with self-titration of medications.  I have some potential fears.  I love the idea of self-monitoring and participating in one’s own healthcare. I’m also open to self-titration of medications, I do engage my patients with other types of self-titration.  We have a long track record of training diabetics to titrate their insulin based on certain parameters.  It comes down to making sure we have the resources to educate patients on how to do it properly and safely, and taking steps to minimize harm.  :31

Levy says too much or too little medicine for blood pressure can result in falls or other bad outcomes, so care is needed.  At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.