NOTHING is working! Help!

Hi, 41 year-old male here. I just want to get my blood pressure under control, but nothing is working. NOTHING. It honestly freaks me the heck out. Over the past 12 years or so, I've always gotten readings that hovered around 150/90, more or less.

At my worst, about 2 years ago, my BP was at 167/110! Made me sick to my stomach. Just seeing those numbers made me queasy. I vowed right then and there to get this taken care of.

I made an appointment with my doctor at the time, explained everything, and they gave me a prescription: Hydrochlorothiazide (small daily dose). Took that for a few months. No change. Fast forward another year, changed doctors, and they put me on Lisinopril. On a sidenote, the whole thing was tormenting me because I didn't like the idea of taking medication for the rest of my life, but I told myself it was better than living with the uncertainty of this monster. After a few months of that, I mustered up the courage to finally take my reading on my own. No change! I began to get very discouraged and teetered between obsessing over this to completely ignoring the issue, since it was frankly just overwhelming. Some medical professionals mentioned that I may have "white coat" syndrome, and that the act of taking my reading was enough to spike my blood pressure since it made me so anxious at that particular moment. Part of me believed it, since I DID notice I would get anxious during the reading, but could you blame me? The other part of me didn't believe it because, although I did believe that the anticipation of taking my blood pressure did stress me out, I didn't see how it could raise my blood pressure THAT much. So, fast forward another year, and I finally find a third doctor which I honestly liked a lot. Explained my issues and they put me on Amlodipine, 5 mg.

This is where things get a little interesting: They told me to start taking it daily, come back in 2 weeks, and they would monitor my progress to see how it was working. At this point, I highly doubted there would be any difference but I went through the process anyway. On my return, they took my reading (I was anxious and pessimistic), and was euphorically surprised to see the exact numbers 120/80! I was so happy that I had finally gotten this under control! I resigned myself to the fact that I was just going to have to be on this medication forever, but came to terms with it. So the months pass, I'm taking 5mg Amlodipine daily, started exercising, eating better, stopped drinking, and even lost 15 pounds. I was ridin' high! Fast forward about 6 months of maintaining this new healthy lifestyle, I go in for another physical. I'm happy and relaxed, and honestly kind of excited for them to take my blood pressure reading. I finally felt normal and healthy. They took my reading, and it was at freaking 150/90. I felt the room close in on me and was just speechless. Defeated. Hopeless. All they did was up the dosage to 10 mg instead of 5. Blegh.

So this is where I am now. They recommended that I get my own at-home blood pressure machine, which I did, so that I could "get used" to the process since it seemed like the anticipation of getting checked was possibly affecting my readings. But honestly, I'm so distraught, exhausted and traumatized by everything I've been through. There are times when I see a blood pressure machine and I just want to throw up. Makes me want to curl up into a corner and not move. Despite taking daily medication, cutting alcohol, exercising, losing weight, going through 3 different doctors, and being on that stupid medication for 6 months, there is no change. I really am perplexed, scared and pretty much have accepted that I will just spontaneously drop dead one of these days from my heart exploding or something like that. Can anyone give me some advice? This is awful.