Complementary approaches

As the people interviewed were mostly identified through their GPs, the majority were following conventional methods of treatment. However, one recently diagnosed woman was using a combination of homeopathy and kinesiology to see if her blood pressure could be brought down without using drugs, and another was seriously considering stopping her medications.

Considers homeopathic treatment options.

Age at interview 52

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 52

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I’ve tried to avoid conventional medicines as much as possible in my adult life. I’ll always try homeopathic treatment first, and in fact in many cases it’s been very successful. I rang through to my homeopath straight away and told her that I had high blood pressure and asked could she help. Homeopathic treatment doesn’t just work on the bit, the problem that you have at the time; it works on the whole, the whole body, the whole being, the whole person.

And so, we had a long conversation about how things were going. She had a good idea about what she wanted to give me but she needed to consult her books and then she just handed over the remedy, which is in liquid form, and I take it for 3 weeks and then report back. I also went to see a canesiologist in order to, who’d been highly recommended and her treatment worked very much on the blood pressure. It’s a method whereby the practitioner asks questions to your body that replies by a symptom of signs to her and then she works on what she is told. It can be by some kind of manipulative method or it can be by exercises, all manners of things actually. The canesiology it’s very interesting, I don’t really feel I fully understand how it works. But I certainly know that after the first session I mentally felt very, very different and very much better.

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Several people expressed mild interest in looking into the possibility of alternative approaches but claimed to have difficulty finding any reliable information on the subject. It was suggested that if more was known about alternative therapies some might be found that would at least complement conventional treatment. Expense was also an issue.

Considers whether it is worth trying to research out complementary treatment options.

Age at interview 51

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 50

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I should probably ring up the local well-being clinic and see if I can get any information out of them. But I am certainly not, being on a low income, going to waste any money unless I have some evidence. You know, unless they can actually say ‘oh yes this is something that works well with such and such a therapy. I mean I haven’t got money to willy-nilly spend on all different therapies and none of them do anything.

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Describes how he would consider complementary treatment as part of a full medical regime.

Age at interview 56

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 50

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I believe that as long as I continue to take that medication, but with some other little aid like if somebody says ‘Have a glass of this, it works for about half an hour or so, or two hours’ something like that. If that is a supplement to what I’m doing and it can’t really damage it, it can’t make it any worse, it can either do nothing or leave it as it is, then I’ll do it. I don’t think about having a stroke and dropping down dead or something like that, it doesn’t bother me. I’m aware of that dieting too probably could play a great part in my life.

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Relaxation methods were recommended but only some found benefits in meditation and Tai Chi.

Considers using relaxation tapes as a complementary treatment option.

Age at interview 71

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 26

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I did have a relaxation tape at one time given to me I’m sure by my GP. If it didn’t it could have come from the hospital when I had these little boxes taking readings. I usually listened to it at night time when everything was turned off before I went to sleep. It does help because it tells you to close your eyes and then open them and shut them, and tighten your toes and all that sort of thing. As far as other forms of relaxation are concerned, I’ve heard people on the radio saying that they’ve had chiropractics for backs which I’d love to go into. It might do me a bit of good, but when it comes to cost it’s too expensive. I’ve often thought about it but of course when it comes to ’30 to see a chiropractor, ’30 for every session you have, you couldn’t do it on a pension.

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Considers acupuncture as a complementary treatment option.

Age at interview 69

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 64

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Health is of absolutely prime importance to me. I managed for about a year or it could have been two. I had acupuncture which brought it down temporarily but then the acupuncturist said well I think you’d really better go to the doctor. Because it went up I needed to have acupuncture every week to keep it down. I do Tai-Chi and I have done it for ten years and I meditate. Five years ago perhaps I didn’t do it as much as I do now but I am very very keen, I’ It’s my basic credo to be self sufficient and I hated the idea of taking pills of any kind, so I fought tooth and nail not to take any pills but eventually I had to give in and the doctor gave me beta-blockers.

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Describes relaxation as a complementary treatment option.

Age at interview 61

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 58

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I did kind of learn a bit about how to do the relaxing technique and on the whole I’ve found that’s quite beneficial in various ways. There are times when you’re sitting on the train or you’re sitting you know I’m sitting in my room, I’ve got 10 minutes before a tutorial and instead of doing a piece of work for those last 10 minutes I sometimes go into this routine and I think that’s quite beneficial generally.

In fact I’ve found it also puts me to sleep so I sometimes do it to go to sleep but apparently then it doesn’t help your blood pressure, but if it helps you to sleep that’s good too [laughs], it’s all something gained you know.

I’m sitting here, this is a good chair for doing it in and you can, you just gradually consciously relax every part of your body, you go through from your feet and work all the way up one of those things, just let, just concentrate on the muscles and feel are they tense, let them go, and then you go into a routine of taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, a long slow breath, and as you let it out you’re supposed to say some ritual phrase which you say each time the same phrase over and over.

Some people do it with music and other things but actually I think this question of saying something to yourself and choosing a phrase which in some way is soothing is part of it and I think that’s one of the reasons it works for me. I remind myself that I need some peace you know and I have one or two phrases or words of my own choice that actually are like little kind of prayers of a non-religious kind if you like. It’s a bit like that but it’s a little ritual expression of your need for peace and to be nice to yourself as it were and to take yourself out of the usual hurly burly and pressure of life.

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Describes Negung, a form of yoga, as a treatment for hypertension.

Age at interview 69

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 64

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I’ll tell one thing where my blood pressure did come down without the pills. I was doing something called Negung which is core clearance and it involved just standing for an hour and I found that during that time, I did that for a year and a half, my blood pressure was wonderfully down. That coincided with a period when I didn’t take pills or anything. But I just haven’t got the self-discipline to stand on my own for an hour every day. When I did it twice a week I just haven’t got the discipline or the confidence.

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It seemed that feeling positive did help, such as with one interviewee who had counselling and considered it made a tremendous difference to her blood pressure.

Explains how counselling gave her relief, which in turn had an effect on her blood pressure.

Age at interview 52

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 22

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I’ve spoken to counsellors just to find out why am I so like the way I am. And indeed I’ve had bereavement counselling as well, because I felt at that time that I needed to speak to someone because my blood pressure was just going up and up and up and I was not coping, and I felt that perhaps just talking to someone about what I was holding perhaps would help me. And I think it did, I really think it did.

Did it make a difference to your blood pressure?

Not a tremendous difference but at least for a good 3 to 6 months my readings were better. Because when you talk about things that you internalise, somehow it’s a relief and any relief I think helps me to cope better and if I’m coping better then you know my blood pressure always seems to do better.

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NICE issued guidelines in June 2006 updated in August 2011 on the treatment of hypertension that stated that relaxation therapies such as stress management, meditation, cognitive therapies, muscle relaxation and biofeedback, can have a modest effect on reducing blood pressure and people, ‘may wish to pursue these as part of their treatment’.

Several West Indians interviewed had tried various infusions suggested by friends or family. No one suggested using them to replace the medication they were on, recognising that this could be dangerous, but as a supplement Aloe Vera was mentioned, as was ginger, which was believed to have a specific action in thinning the blood.

A possible reason for the relative lack of interest in alternative medicine for hypertension was the prevailing belief that the only way to really make a difference to blood pressure was to combat stress (for information on stress see our Information section), and for this other approaches were more relevant. (See ‘Changes to lifestyle’.)

There could also be an aversion to trying new things, and as one patient explained, since high blood pressure (hypertension) did not require treatment by very toxic drugs, there was no reason not to take them.

For more information on high blood pressure see our Resources and Information section.

Last reviewed December 2011.

Last updated January 2012.