20/10/2026
Medicine is not an exact science. We like to believe it is. We want to walk into a doctor's office, receive a diagnosis, leave with a prescription, and have the problem solved. Sometimes it works exactly that way. But anyone who has spent time inside healthcare knows the truth: what works beautifully for one person may do nothing for another, and may make a third person feel worse than before they started. Every standard of care is built on averages, and none of us is an average. There will always be the outliers, the anomalies, the people whose bodies simply do not read the textbook.
At CORE Heart Health Center, I see this play out every week. A new participant sits down with us, and we begin talking about their medications. Too often the conversation goes like this: "My doctor gave me a pill for my blood pressure, but I stopped taking it." When we ask why, the answer is almost always the same. It made them dizzy. It made them tired. It upset their stomach. It made them feel off. So they quietly put the bottle in the cupboard and never told anyone.
I understand that decision. Nobody wants to feel unwell from the very thing that is supposed to help them. But I always share the same analogy. Imagine you wear a size seven shoe. You walk into a store, try on a size seven, and it pinches your toes. Do you give up on shoes and go barefoot for the rest of your life? Of course not. You try a different style, a different brand, maybe a wider fit, until you find the pair that carries you comfortably. Medicine deserves the same patience. If the first prescription does not fit, the answer is not to stop. The answer is to go back and find the one that does.
This matters because stopping is not neutral. Untreated high blood pressure does not announce itself; it works silently on the heart, the brain, the kidneys and the blood vessels. Research has shown that people who stop taking their blood pressure medication face a much higher risk of stroke, and that risk can follow them for years. The discomfort of a side effect is real, but so is the risk of walking away from treatment altogether. The better path is almost always to adjust the dose, change the drug, or change the combination, with your doctor rather than without them.
One case has stayed with me for years. A Black woman came to CORE and told us her blood pressure medication was making her feel loopy. She was ready to stop taking it. Our cardiologist, who works alongside us here at CORE, did not dismiss her. He listened, and he asked her questions, including whether she had ever had breast cancer. She had. He changed her medication and her dose, explaining that Black women who have had breast cancer can sometimes react differently to certain medications. She felt better, and she stayed on treatment. What struck me was that he asked, and that she spoke up. Her experience became information, and that information changed her care.
Her story matters because who she was mattered. Doctors have long known that Black patients can respond differently to some blood pressure medications, and that a person's history, including cancer and its treatment, can change how other medicines work in the body. Her race and her history were not side notes. They were central to finding the right answer. None of this means anyone is defined by their race or their diagnosis. It means that who you are, where you come from, and what you have lived through are part of the prescription.
That is why the most important person in the exam room is you. Your doctor brings knowledge. You bring the only lived experience of your body that exists. If a medication makes you dizzy, nauseous, foggy, exhausted or unwell, and you have given it a fair try, pick up the phone. Tell your doctor exactly what you are feeling and when it happens. Ask whether there is another dose, another option, another approach. Write it down if that helps, and bring someone with you if you need support. Advocacy is not confrontation; it is participation. And if you feel unheard, you have every right to ask again or to seek another opinion.
I have come to believe this is part of a larger lesson about accepting ourselves. We are each born with a genetic makeup that belongs to no one else. Someone will be tall and someone will be short. Some of us will have brown eyes and some blue. Some will keep a full head of hair into their eighties, and some men will start losing theirs at eighteen. Our body shapes, our metabolisms, the way we carry weight and the way we respond to food, stress and medicine are all part of that same design. No two people will ever be exactly alike.
When we accept that truth, something shifts. We stop measuring ourselves against a standard that was never written for us. We stop feeling like failures because the "normal" pill, the "normal" diet or the "normal" body does not look like ours. Body acceptance and self-advocacy grow from the same root: knowing that you are a distinct individual, and that your differences are not defects. They are information.
So embrace who you are. Learn your numbers. Understand your body. Pay attention to how you feel, and speak up when something is not right. Partner with your healthcare team instead of quietly giving up. Nobody should have to suffer a stroke, a heart attack or a lifetime of decline because the first shoe pinched and they decided to stop wearing shoes. Keep trying until you find the fit. You are worth that effort.
By: Simone Barton
CEO of the Bermuda Heart Foundation and founder of CORE Heart Health Center.
Sources
• Stopping blood pressure medication and stroke risk, Finnish study of 73,527 patients (European Heart Journal, 2013): NEJM Journal Watch summary
• Black patients' response to blood pressure medications, ACC/AHA 2017 guideline: Wiki Journal Club, ALLHAT
• Blood pressure medications and breast cancer treatment (Cancer Medicine, 2026): Breastcancer.org
The Bermuda Heart Foundation is an active charitable organization advocating for heart health educat
