I noticed my mood improvement with telmisartan when I was not using lithium (and today I still use it once in a while).
Dapagliflozin (and SGLT2 in general) are associated with a lower rate of depression than in the general population even though they lower lithium levels.
I take dapagliflozin and my mood improved with it as well.
OK, scratch that hypothesis! What about telmi raising levels of lithium not from supplements but dietary lithium? Of course that would not account for the dapa mood elevation while eliminating lithium. So, still a mystery.
I think telmisartan only doubles lithium. Thatās not enough to reach anything significant. In the dozens of papers looking at ARBs (and especially telmisartan) in depression (such as in rodent models) they make various assumptions. But no one knows . We know have n=4 people here who noticed this effect, quite somethingā¦
Based solely on my experience @zebit0, you might want to wait six weeks or so and take quite a few readings around that period (AM, PM, evening) to see how it is stabilizing. If you have not already done so, you might want to have GPT-4o respond to a complex prompt on the topic, engaging as one researcher to another. I find it almost always outperforms Claude (which I like better for other purposes) on medical research. When you have concluded your conversation with follow ups, ask it for all of the citations.
As for the 40/80 question solely as it applies to BP, I have tried a couple of runs of 80 mg. and didnāt see much difference. (However, none of them were long enough for a full shakeout.) I canāt see any near term way to assess the potential cardiac benefit, if any or me, of the higher dose.
After reading a Life Extension article, I persuaded my doctor to prescribe telmisartan for blood pressure control. I took it for months without apparent issues until a dermatologist linked it to itchiness and small red spots on my extremities. The symptoms resolved months after stopping telmisartan, though this could be coincidental or a rare reaction, as I found no similar reports online. Seeking an alternative, I discovered rilmenidine, which has shown lifespan-extending effects and mimics calorie restriction in animal studies. Itās well-tolerated and approved in many countries but not yet available in the US.
Did you have bloodwork done? Iām recently on Telmisartan and was told it can cause kidney duress. One of the signs of kidney duress is dry, itchy skin that may develop due to mineral imbalances and the buildup of waste products in the blood.
Funny thing is my doctor prescribed a years worth of Telmisartan and said if its all working for you see you in a year but my pharmacist would not refill the original 30 day prescription without me going for bloodwork checking for kidney duress first.
Lol, now be honest, adssx, do you feel your kidneys are under duress? But seriously, pubmed doesnāt return any results for me ātelmisartan kidney duressā, though I did find this, noting that telmisartan has a highly individualized effect in patients:
Sorry, Iām just repeating what I was told. I did just do the bloodwork when it comes back I will specifically ask my doc what they were checking for. If your saying Telmisartan can have no negative effects on the kidneys then its possible that my pharmacist was simply overzealous although Iām not sure why my doc then ordered the bloodwork.
Just started taking telmisartan 4 days ago
For slighty elevated BP , also interested in its other benefits
I already notice changes to my stress response
And a general relaxed feeling
First , second day had a slight headache but seemed to disappear with a cardio session