DR ELLIE CANNON: Are blood pressure pills or the heatwave swelling my ankles?

DR ELLIE CANNON: Are blood pressure pills or the heatwave swelling my ankles? By Dr Ellie Cannon For The Mail On Sunday Published: 11:52 BST, 7 July 2024 | Updated: 11:52 BST, 7 July 2024 e-mail View comments I'm a 70-year-old woman, and last year when the weather was hot my ankles and feet swelled up. Since then the swelling has not gone down. I take blood pressure medicine, amlodipine, but I only started on this after the swelling began.

Can you offer any advice? Dr Ellie replies: Swelling is a worrying ailment and shouldn’t be ignored. While it can happen after a long flight or in hot weather, this will usually subside. Swelling which continues for a long time can sometimes be a sign of heart failure – a dangerous condition where the heart pumps less efficiently than before.

It can also be a symptom of kidney or liver problems, as well as poor circulation. However, one of the most common causes of swollen ankles is blood pressure medication such as amlodipine. While it is an effective drug for reducing blood pressure, this is a side-effect GPs see all the time.

Ankle swelling which continues for a long time can sometimes be a sign of heart failure It is possible that a patient who already had swollen ankles caused by hot weather, and then began taking amlodipine, would see the problem continue. The good news is that there are plenty of other drugs which can effectively treat high blood pressure and might not trigger this uncomfortable side effect. These are medicines a.