Astute readers made various comments, including that perhaps I should first try diet, weight loss, exercise and that I should be aware that someone of my description has a low likelihood of actually benefiting from drug treatment of these things. These were reasonable comments. It turns out that I don't need to lose weight, being at the bottom of the healthy range of body mass index, and that my exercise level is pretty optimal, my diet is as evidence based as I can make it, and although I have a low risk for vascular disease, the ultrasound says I have it anyway.
I made it my mission to find drugs that would lower my risk of stroke and heart attack without sacrificing my health and well being. This has been surprisingly tricky.
No side effects
If I am to take pills for decades on the small chance that they will keep me from having some vile health event, they need to cause me no trouble. That means they can't make me feel bad and they can't cost very much money. They should also be unlikely to kill me.
Lisinopril
I started with lisinopril, an inhibitor of the enzyme that converts angiotensin to its active form. It is an old drug and inexpensive. It can kill me by making my tongue swell up unpredictably, but that is very unlikely. In certain circumstances it can cause kidney failure, but it can also prevent kidney failure. It is usually quite effective in reducing blood pressure. My pharmacy charges just over $1 for a 1 month supply. I found that it wanted to get stuck going down my throat (it's not very slippery) and that at a low dose it didn't do much to lower my blood pressure.
Atorvastatin
Statin drugs reduce cholesterol and reduce vascular disease, though their effects in patients who have not had any cardiovascular events are minimal. Atorvastatin is pretty cheap, less than $10 a month through my pharmacy. It can definitely make my muscles weak and painful, but I haven't noticed that so far. If it does make me weaker, I may never be aware of that, just thinking that I am experiencing normal aging. Since I am hoping to buy vibrant health, that would be a nasty little irony. It almost never kills anyone, other than by causing a slight increase in the incidence of diabetes, which definitely does kill people. My physician told me I had to take it at night, which means that I forget to take it most of the time. The reason that a person should take a statin at night is because it works best during fasting states. But atorvastatin is a long acting statin and can be taken any time of day. Now I will start being more compliant, taking all of my pills at the same time, vaguely with breakfast. After my first month of taking it nearly every day, my cholesterol was lower than it had ever been, well within guidelines. Whether this is a relevant surrogate measure for any sort of health benefit, I'm not sure.
Chlorthalidone or Atenolol/Chlorthalidone
A recent meta-analysis showed that chlorthalidone, an old and less frequently used thiazide diuretic, may be more effective than its sister drug, hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ), in preventing cardiovascular disease. Other studies have shown that it is more potent, milligram for milligram and more long lasting. Unfortunately it is also more expensive than HCTZ by a factor of more than 10. It is, however, cheap when combined with atenolol, a beta blocker. (Why it is more expensive than its newer relative and less expensive in combination with atenolol is another story that has to do with the dysfunctional economics of drug pricing.) Thiazide diuretics can lower the potassium level and the sodium levels and by that mechanism can kill people, but this can be monitored and is rare in its most severe forms. Beta blockers have been associated with dangerously low heart rates in some people along with weight gain and depression, but this is not common. I tried the combination. I had to get up and pee more often at night but otherwise it was innocuous. It did not lower my blood pressure very much if at all.
Lisinopril/HCTZ
Lisinopril in combination with a thiazide diuretic such as HCTZ or chlorthalidone is much more effective than either drug alone. They make a generic combination pill and it is also very cheap, just about the same price as lisinopril alone. I got a prescription for 90 of these, and after having taken 2 found they controlled my blood pressure very nicely, were easy to swallow and made me itch and burn in my sun-exposed areas of skin. HCTZ is well known to do this. Chlorthalidone can too, since they are similar in structure, but it didn't have that effect on me. Know anyone who needs 88 lisinopril/HCTZ tablets?
Lisinopril/chlorthalidone
No drug manufacturer in the US makes a combination pill of these two, and I'm betting when they do it will be expensive. But I did, after all, try taking lisinopril plus a half of an atenolol/chlorthalidone pill which has caused no side effects other than the annoyance of the lisinopril pill taking its time to navigate my esophagus. Hooray! Maybe. It probably gives me a little tickle in my throat. This is classic for lisinopril and is very subtle indeed for me. I don't cough all the time, but find that as I fall asleep or am otherwise not occupied, I notice the need to cough or have a sip of water to clear the tickle. This is nearly a deal breaker, but I am willing to wait awhile and see if it persists. This combination works well for my blood pressure.
Aspirin
Why not? Aspirin reduces the tendency of platelets to clump and form clots, so it should reduce my risk of strokes. It will also increase my risk of significant bleeding. Aspirin is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, and even though low doses do not work to quell knee or back pain, they can cause ulcers or heartburn. I had heartburn as a wee medical student but haven't had it for years. As a new aspirin user I have it again. Nothing terrible, but not nothing.
So theoretically I am now on lisinopril, atenolol/chlorthalidone, atorvastatin and aspirin. They pretty cheap, around $10/month for everything. That still is $120 for a year and $1200 for 10 years and likely to go up in price with time. I am a little more miserable than I was on no drugs at all, and I am being bad about both compliance (taking the pills all the time) and followup. My chance of benefiting from these drugs is low. The pills are on probation.
It is important to ask, while contemplating a lifelong commitment to deliberately putting toxic chemicals into my body, if my data is sufficient. My blood pressure runs 140-160/90-94 untreated (though it is quite normal after 20 minutes of meditation.) We know that treating a population of people to bring their blood pressure down below those numbers reduces heart attacks and strokes, but do we know that my blood pressure, in the setting of otherwise good health, is harmful at all to me? I have a carotid plaque: it is not obstructing flow to any extent, but is impressively lumpy and looks like Mt. Fuji on one view. It is calcified, so it has been there awhile. It probably formed before I even had high blood pressure. Did it happen in the physical stress of childbirth? Was it formed in any of the stressful years when bad life events disturbed my otherwise charmed existence? Is it merely a signpost indicating a path not taken, or will it eventually be one of many? In a nutshell, am I just fine the way I am?
So far the experiment with pills has not been a big win. I have definitely gained, however, from the experience of being a patient, though a mighty privileged one. I have learned that side effects are real, even if they aren't on the package insert, and may be in categories like inconvenience, worry and always wondering if I have a side effect. I have learned that effective medication can be pretty inexpensive, but that the dollar cost belies the expense associated with the life disruption that taking pills can have. And that even cheap pills add up over time. I've learned that when effective medication doesn't have the desired effect, it is sometimes because the patient isn't taking the medication, but sometimes because a given pill just doesn't tweak a given person's physiology in a way that works. I've learned that even though I consider myself to be very tolerant and easy going when it comes to physical hardship, if I mentioned all of these concerns to a personal physician I would almost certainly sound like a whiner.