Hi, my name is Joyce. I want to start a low carb wol but when I tried the Atkins diet a few months ago, I didn't loose any weight after three weeks on the induction diet. I decided this must have been due to the medications I was taking, Zoloft, an antidepressant and Hzarr, an angiotensin II antigonist and thiazide diuretic combination for hypertension. I have spent the last couple of months slowly withdrawing from the Zoloft and I have now been completely of the drug for about two weeks. The hypertension drug is a different story. My doctor says that I have to keep taking it. From what I understand about the Atkins diet information, this drug can make me metabolically resistant to weight loss on this diet. I know that the diet is suppose to be a "natural" diuretic but I don't want to go off the drug against doctors orders. Does anyone know if any of the other low carb diets, South Beach, Zone, etc., will work in spite of the fact that I need to take this blood pressure medication. I'm sure there must be others out there in cyber space who have been faced with this problem.....I am anxious to get started on a diet, but I don't want to set myself up for another failure. Any suggestions?
Thanks

hello and welcome ,i also take blood pressure med, i take 5 pills a day ,,atkins is still a good diet to be on ,its just the meds will slow down the weight loss , DO NOT stop your medication by no means til the doctor says to ,, you can do atkins ,but it does go slower ,or you might check with your doctor to see what diet he wants you on ,, i am slowly loosing ,i have to very careful of sodium intake ,because of the blood pessure , . im finding that with atkins our carb intake has to be really 20grams or below for me to loose ,, hang in there ,, and good luck

Hi, Joyce, I am taking both an anti-depressent and a high blood pressure medication. I do not have high blood pressure; I have tachyrhythmia, which means my heart beats too fast and out of rhythm. I have been on several different meds for this heart problem over a ten year period. In February 2004, my Dr. switched me to a new med. and I started Atkins in late April. My heart rate dropped from an average 83-88 bpm to 73-77bpm! In ten years I had never seen my heart rate so low. As I said, I do not have high blood pressure, but wanted to let you know of my positive experience with my own health problems through Atkins. Good luck, Carlene

Hi Joyce. Happy to "weigh in" on this one! I have high blood pressure.

I started Atkins in late January 2004 while taking Lopressor (a beta-blocker) and HCTZ (a thiazide diuretic). I lost 7 pounds the first two weeks then stalled. I had read in DANDR that both of these medications were big problems for weight loss. I went to my doctor and he changed me to Atacand (a receptor antagonist, I think), thinking that that would help, and took me off the diuretic as I had already lost a few pounds and he didn't think I needed it anymore.

Weight loss was still slow. I checked on the Atkins site and found that Atacand also could slow weight loss. I was able to cut the Atacand in half about a month ago and that has seemed to move things along just a bit. I'm averaging now about one pound a week.

One of my main motivations for losing weight is to try to get off the medication. It's possible that it is slowing me down, but lots of other people on this forum have slow weight loss and don't take BP medication. I think that ANY prescription drug has the potential to mess things up.

Not sure if that helps at all, but know that you are not alone in this. We are here to help in any way that we can!!