Is BP Reading Of 101/69 After Taking BP Medication Normal?

Posted on Sun, 12 Nov 2017

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Sun, 12 Nov 2017 Answered on

Fri, 9 May 2025 Last reviewed on

Question : I took blood pressure med for the first time this eve at 6:00 p.m. It is now almost 10:00 p.m. my blood pressure dropped to 101/69. I am afraid to go to sleep as it may drop lower. I am moving around and drinking water. Do I have to stay up all night

Answered by Dr. Ilir Sharka (1 hour later)

Brief Answer:
I would explain as follows :

Detailed Answer:
Hello!

Regarding your concern, I would explain that after 4 hours almost all the antihypertensive medications have started to exert their effects and will keep maintaining their plasmatic concentration for several hours until they will be eliminated by the body.

So you don't, have to worry too much as the probability of showing hypotensive effects will decrease in the next hours for most of these drugs.

For drugs with short elimination half time their effects diminish faster.

So in each case the risks for ongoing hypotension will be lower in the next hours.

What I recommend would be checking your blood pressure values before taking the next day dose.

If low BP values persist, you need to decrease or avoid continuing the new drug and discuss with the prescribing doctor.

Hope to have been helpful to you!

In case of any further questions, please feel free to ask me again.

Kind regards,

Dr. Iliri

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Nagamani Ng