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Keto Diet And Blood Pressure Question

C

Conrad74

Well-Known Member
Messages
51
Type of diabetes
Type 2
I started the keto diet over two weeks ago, and my blood pressure has been slowly creeping up ever since. I am on blood pressure medication. Ramipril/HCT 10/25 i believe it’s called. Today my blood pressure was 185/90 and my heart rate was 95. And that is the lowest of 3 readings within 10 min of resting. Also my fasting blood sugar was 9.3, which is the highest it has been since on this diet and my weight was up 4 pounds from 3 days ago, which I’m assuming is from water retention as my diet hasn’t changed any. I’m 5’7 and 170 lbs in fairly good physical shape and 43 years old. What can I do to bring my blood pressure back under control. Before starting this diet with medication it had always been around 125/70 with heart rate of around 70. Am starting to get worried this diet is doing more damage than good to me.
 
Hi @Conrad74 Don't expect everything to be immediate with a very low carb diet, bodies can take time to adjust. However, to make sure that we are all talking about the same thing, could you, please, tell us what you eat on a typical day as part of your keto diet.
Sally
 
I work 3:30 in the afternoon till 2 in the morning. So my typical meal plan each day. At noon I have a coffee with 35%cream, 1 boiled egg and 1 avocado and a kale spinach salad with olive oil and raw apple cider vinegar for dressing and some salt and pepper. At 8:30 at night(my lunch time) I will have either broccoli, asparagus, or spinach cooked in butter with mushrooms an average piece of meat and a coffee with 35% cream. Sometimes if I feel like a snack, but very rarely I’ll have a 1/4 if a cucumber with salt on it. That’s about it
 

OK, so that sounds like a keto diet. (some people think they are doing keto, but then have weetabix for breakfast). Maybe you just need to give it a bit more time, but, look at it this way, nobody ever claimed that carbs/sugar actively lowered blood pressure, so I doubt if their absence is putting it up!
There is a thread at the moment about salt, I think "Salt" is its title. The body loses salt when you start keto and some people are suggesting that lack of salt increases bp. Might be worth looking into this and adding some salt to all those veg.
Hopefully someone else will have some ideas before too long.
Sally
 
I do add quite a bit of salt to everything. And I did buy some urine ketone test strips. They always come back with moderate ketone levels. I know they aren’t as accurate as the blood testing, but it some indicator that ketones are present. My gf tried the strips and hers came back negative( she’s not on a keto diet)
 
These are not great signs given that most people expect reduced blood sugars and lower blood pressure from eating a very low carb diet and eating only 2 meals a day ( you are fasting between 9pm and 12 noon right?).
It could be that this is a period of adjustment but try eating a little more salt and plenty of fluid to ensure your body does not hold onto fluid thus causing a bp spike.

My other thought is that your quite low cal diet (though you didn't specify quanities) might be causing a starvation response of hanging onto fat, releasing sugar from the liver (gluconeogenesis) and have seen on the net that BP can spike too.
BTW have you jumped straight into this at the deep end and could you try a gentler on ramp to low carb before you get completely disheartened?
 

Has all this coincided with our recent heatwave? Hot weather can play havoc with blood glucose, pulse rates, and maybe even blood pressure (I don't know, but it may). Also are you drinking enough fluids? Dehydration also plays havoc with our metabolic syndromes.
 
Up until last Friday things were going extremely well. I didn’t have any bg readings over 7, and my fasting bg was in the low 5’s for over a week. Friday I started feeling very nauseous and light headed and did some research and found I could be lacking salt and be dehydrated. So for 2 days I drank about 3-4 liters of water a day, plus mixed in 2 bouillon cubes each day. I felt better by the end of the second day but was back up to the same weight when I started this diet. Since Sunday I have gained 4 pounds, with no real change in diet, and my bp has climbed significantly as has my blood glucose. I live in Ontario Canada and we haven’t had any extreme temperatures lately, actually has been on the cooler side. I do usually drink lots of lemon water. (Just water with lemon juices squeezed into it). I never really did eat a lot of carbs, even before this diet I’d limit it to less then 75 a day. Yes, I do only eat 2 times a day and fast from 9 to 12
 
Drinking that much water, unless you are working horrendous temperatures or an elite athlete seems excessive and will simply result in most of it being urinated out, unless - and it is possible given your symptoms - that you have some kidney or cardiac impairment and are suffering from fluid retention. Have you had your renal functions checked lately?
 
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