Should I take Micardis with food?
High blood pressure or known as hypertension in the medical term has affected millions of people worldwide. The statistics also not that different from the Malaysian population. Commonly known to affect more elderly people, hypertension nowadays has been seen to also rise among the younger population.
There are many ways high blood pressure can be managed such as eating foods with low salt, sugar and fat, exercising 3-4 times a week and taking medication. The latter is an important step in preventing future or potential problems associated with this condition such as stroke and heart attack. Once diagnosed with high blood pressure, there is no cure as to current research but it is a well possible chronic disease to be controlled with methods stated above.
What is Micardis?
Micardis is a medication that is being used to treat hypertension. It consists of Telmisartan as an active ingredient. Telmisartan belongs to a class of drugs known as Angiotensin II Receptor Blocker (ARB). This group of drugs acts on a complicated system that inhibits the heart from receiving information to increase the blood pressure and hence causing the opposite effect when they are consumed by the patients.
Micardis for high blood pressure has been used as a substitute for another class of drug which is Angiotensin-Renin Convertase Inhibitor (ACE-i) which always associated with dry cough and sore throat. It is also used as a primary or additional hypertension drug. Micardis can be taken with or without food as there are no contra-indications when trials being made.
There are questions regarding whether people should take Micardis for high blood pressure with food or not as they sometimes associate certain side effects of taking this medication with foods taken. Common side effects of taking Micardis are like dizziness, limbs swellings, allergy, and coughing.
Uncommonly, Micardis may cause side effects when interacts with other drugs and patients may mistakenly associate this with the food intake. Micardis also has another rare side effect like raise blood potassium level. This, in theory, will be exacerbated when the consumer eats too much potassium-rich food like spinaches or bananas.
It is not unusual to see people who have hypertension need to take other medications as well since hypertension people often have other chronic diseases like diabetes and high cholesterol. Some of the other pills need to take with foods while others may no need to hence the problem of scheduling the Micardis intake with other tablets to avoid confusion. Since Micardis can be taken with or without food, this should clear the problem for the consumer and there should not be a case where people miss the tablet due to concern whether the food will affect the efficacy of the drug.
There is also misinformation regarding the intake of certain medication that needs to be taken without food in people with gastric problem as it is said that food will cause more acid and thus affecting the absorption of Micardis. It is not accurate however if hypertension patients who at the same time have gastric problem worries about whether the effectiveness of Micardis might get affected, they should discuss this issue further with their physician.
In a nutshell, Micardis is a safe drug to consume whether with food or without it and precautionary steps should be taken if the person is pregnant or taking other medications. Further consultation before taking this medication is advisable to prevent any misinformation and possibly any harm.
