I can't speak to your condition in relation to my mom's but I can say that my mom's flares for whatever her condition is tend to increase with certain foods. And even certain mental states. It seems that anything that increases blood flow or heart beat can increase the pain of EM flares or cause a bad flare. This includes the following for her.
Movies that excite her.
Anything like drama that excites her, like a family drama.
Any exercise that will increase blood flow or heart rate.
Any food, with a lot of salt, very sweet with high sugar or spicy foods. This leaves her with a bland diet with occassional things that are for the most part on the forbidden list which are taken sparingly to dull the food boredom of boring food.
Onions cause her to be upset in the stomach, perhaps not a pain flare, but she uses chives instead which seem okay.
Garlic, she hates and upsets her stomach. I don't know if it affects the feet poorly, as she never has it basically.
She has good blood flow, very good and at times was told she had the vascular system of an 18 year old despite being an old lady.
It seems that anything that can increase her blood flow or even anxiety can cause a flare.
Her blood pressure will go up, as a result of the pain flare, so it can be a cycle. It's important to note with extreme pain
the human organism will respond by having increased blood pressure. This I've heard from doctors, so I believe it and I've also seen this with her. She had a huge stress, which I won't go into and extreme pain from heating of her feet in a
bad place. This caused her blood pressure to spike to 190/93 (pulse not noted from my notes). Within ten or 15 minutes
of cold packs on her feet to bring down the EM flare through no added medication but only chilling of her feet her blood
pressure dropped to 120/something. . . at that time. I don't have my notes handy, but it was the most remarkable drop in
blood pressure without drugs that I've ever seen.
This seemed to show at least for that day, that her BP will increase due to the pain. All things being the same, a fairly normal drug dose and pain pills, the other environmental stresses caused her blood pressure to spike to the point that many would fear a stroke. To take a low blood pressure pill, at least the kind she takes will bring down her BP by perhaps 20 points in a couple hours if the foot problems aren't really changing. It seems to me at least in the case of my mom that the BP is elevated as a part of her overall pain that she experiences. It seems at least in her case that the BP and flares can be inter-related, but more evidence in her case. . . which could be or could not be the same for some others. . . the BP is at least for her a result of the flares.
What comes first the BP spike or the flare? That's almost a chicken and egg theory. I believe, based on my limited experience of seeing the figures with this one case, that both can cause the other, but at least in our case the BP is a result of the pain flares.
For a while after her hospital visit, etc she was off the BP pills per doctors orders because her blood pressure was low and traditionally for her she had a slow heart beat and low blood pressure, before she experienced Burning Foot Syndrome. In her "new life" of (hell?) she experiences high blood pressure. Whether that's some kind of strange autoimmune response, or lack of suppression from previous drugs she was used to or some other damage to the nerves or brain is difficult to say or figure. It's something that the doctors haven't really pinned down.
Some of her side effects, are clearly from the drugs she takes and they cause strange actions that of course normal people don't experience as normal. They are just side effects from the drugs.
I don't know of people with the Nav 1.7 sodium channel defect are hypersensitive in other ways, in other words do they experience more side effects from drugs. If she has that defect, but we don't know that. . . perhaps she is "more sensitive and experiences more side effects. The BP medicine in her case is "maintenance BP medication". We saw in her case that she didn't need it for about two weeks after hospitalization, due to low pulse rates and low BP readings. Once she got more rest and started to get more into a regular routine at home, which doesn't really involve a lot of activity, her BP readings started going up again, perhaps due to more pain flares. I wonder if I had a really good environmental watch and foot chilling routine, like around the clock monitors on her feet with IR skin readers and chilling techniques like an intensive care watch with many people could her BP be brought down by keeping her feet cool enough and her flares in check enough. If that would be possible it might prove at least in my mom's case that most of her blood pressure(BP) spikes are due to pain flares. . .
I can't predict or say that anyone else should discontinue their BP medication. Most doctors will say keep on your medications and be under medical care. With EM suffering it may mean an intense staff and intense monitoring, but more often than not I think doctors will say that we cannot and should not respond to small spikes in our BP or pain flares and over-react with quick changes in our medical dosage. Things like stopping your BP medication OR adding a bunch of pain killers (doubling a dose) or something like that for a flare can be a dangerous path to take. Get specifics on what ranges of pills can be used to increase or decrease in discussions with your doctor. I've heard some bad advise for some made by their relatives, at least through the grape vine, where they are told by loved ones to double a dose and then later on the loved one runs out of drugs, because they are acting without permission of their doctor. This creates more problems, so good communication with your medical provider is a key.
There are of course pill limits especially when you're already on the bleeding edge of pain killers from a dosage point of view. If I get a higher prescription that puts my mom out and makes her more like a zombie in a coma, but she feels less pain while knocked out, is that a good solution? That often becomes a solution we might see with nursing home folks and uncaring care givers. With some EM sufferer's who are already on the bleeding edge of pills, taking more pills and increasing the dosage will almost drive them into a much more dangerous side effect, with side effects that you are warned about on the dosage instructions, because they are already way past the limits of pain killers and medications that other take. I'm sure many EM sufferers here know what I'm talking about, those with severe EM.
PAIN KILLER TANGENT - PILL DOSAGES
In my mom's case added pain killers will help sometimes, and if a dose is late it can cause a flare. If a dose is added early I"m talking about pain killers now, then it may help but more often than not it won't. Extra pain killer, for instance the intense amount one gets from the first day of a three day pain patch will cause more sleep and less pain. The dose may spike and cause more problems as far as pain pills or other pills (nerve meds). It's pretty important to keep a pill diary and note the reactions one has for future reference.
These are just some thoughts. You need to talk to your doctor or doctors about BP medicine changes and keep monitoring the BP. Insure that you are not getting into a dangerous BP zone by taking and logging measurements, BP, skin temp sensors, pliff readings, etc. The tools to do this are relatively cheap and affordable.
Most people that is normal people don't feel sick with HIGH BP and don't know if their BP is high. In my mom's case sometimes she "thinks her BP is high" because her pain is high, but her BP is not high. Perhaps due to the BP medications working and suppressing the BP. Other times she will have High BP and high pain flares. They seem to go hand in hand with her.
Most normal people don't know if they have High BP you won't know until you test and measure. Obviously anything that works and increases blood flow for EM sufferer's will result in a pain flare, so high BP is a sign that more blood is often flowing. It seems logical to say that high BP can cause a pain flare and a pain flare can cause a high BP reading.
You're doctor can tell you what to do at different BP readings, but more often than not they will say take the pills if they are maintenance doses, on a regular basis to keep the BP down overall most of the time. This seems to be the consensus from those doctors, I've spoken with, but remember this is in regards to my mom and every case can be different. There is no substitute for real medical advice from a doctor who knows your case.