Since I have had a bout with coronary artery disease (a mild understatement), I get to daily take a fun regimen of medications. Prior to my “event” I had battled high blood pressure (ironically, my cholesterol was OK), and was on an ace inhibitor to keep it in the “sane” range.
Post event, my cardiologist has been much more aggressive. I am still on the ace inhibitor (which really was almost side effect free), and we added anti clotting drugs, as well as both a statin to lower cholesterol (they like to keep it really low, about 80), and a beta blocker.
Beta blockers are the devil. It does help lower my blood pressure, but it also lowers both my rest pulse rate, and my metabolism. The heart rate reduction is particularly pernicious, as it makes it difficult to get into a good aerobic zone for exercising. I can work my ass off, and never get above a pule rate of 130BPM.
The bad of this is that while I am certainly burning the calories of the exercise, my heart rate monitor sees me as not exerting as much as I am, and thus it tries to adjust my statistics accordingly.
Alas, there is no hope for change. Every year when I go for my stress test, I have to stop taking the beta blocker for 2 days prior. And my blood pressure goes through the roof. Like 150/99.
