Hi y'all!
About 1 week ago, I was prescribed Propanolol 20mg to take once a day, then it'll increase to twice daily once I've been taking it for 2 weeks. I've had a variety of problems managing my anxiety/dealing with anxiety disorders since my teens, but more recently I had been finding that the physical effects of the anxiety were what was causing me the most distress. I had also been monitoring my blood pressure and pulse for the past month beforehand, and had noticed that my baseline for these were high- usually around 140/85 for my blood pressure and maybe around 110 for my pulse. However, these values would fluctuate with my anxiety, and I've gotten up as high as 170/100 for BP and into the 130's for my pulse.
The reason why I bring all of this up is because I'm curious as to how much my blood pressure and pulse affect the extent that my propanolol works for me. I am finding it pretty effective so far! It's doing a great job to minimize the symptoms that were causing me discomfort- racing, pounding heart, sweaty palms, racing thoughts, dizziness, poor concentration, etc. My blood pressure readings have all been somewhere within a few points of 120/70. My pulse hasn't been particularly consistent, but the lowest result I've had for that so far is 84, and thats after not having seen my pulse go below 100 since I had started taking regular readings.
I'm curious if others who also have higher resting vitals and/or cardiac problems have also needed higher doses compared to the 20-40mg dose that people usually end up taking for the physical symptoms of anxiety. I do find that the dose I'm taking now only seems to get me through the morning and maybe the early afternoon depending on how early I get up. I'm also still struggling a decent amount to manage my anxiety when it becomes exacerbated by things like poor sleep or hormones.
If anyone has any insights, advice, helpful info, etc- I'd love to hear it. Thanks :)