Iconic singer Tina Turner, 83, who died on May 24, 2023 after an extended illness, had recently spoken publicly about her long-term struggle with high blood pressure and kidney disease. Her words continue to hold power for the tens of millions of people in the U.S. alone who live with hypertension.

“My kidneys are victims of my not realizing that my high blood pressure should have been treated with conventional medicine,” she posted on Instagram on March 9, 2023, International World Kidney Day. “I have put myself in great danger by refusing to face the reality that I need daily, lifelong therapy with medication.”

A 45-year journey begins

Turner was diagnosed with hypertension in 1978, “but didn’t care much about it,” she shared on the Show Your Kidneys Love website. “I can’t remember ever getting an explanation about what high blood pressure means or how it affects the body. I considered high blood pressure my normal.” A doctor finally prescribed her medication in 1985, she wrote, “and that was it. I didn’t give it any more thought.” 

Her poorly-controlled hypertension led to a stroke in 2009. While struggling to recover, she learned that her kidneys were damaged. By that time, she said, “They had already lost thirty-five percent of their function.”

Illness—is it the pills?

She continued taking her blood pressure medication but started feeling ill—fatigued, unable to think clearly, nauseous, irritable—and blamed the pills. A friend recommended a homeopathic doctor in France, and Turner, without consulting her allopathic physicians, jumped at the chance to find an alternative. The homeopathic doctor gave her a remedy and encouraged her to drink a lot of water. She soon started feeling better.

When her follow-up visit with her allopathic doctor came around, Turner was eager to learn whether or not the homeopathic remedy had solved all her problems. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Both her hypertension and kidney damage had gotten worse.

“Some of the symptoms that I blamed on the medication,” she said, “were really signs of my kidney disease in its final stage…My kidney function had reached its all-time low.”

Dialysis and transplantation

With her kidneys failing, Turner began dialysis. “It was depressing to be connected to a machine for hours,” she wrote. “For the next nine months, all my life was about dialysis.”

She also discovered how critical it is to get accurate information. “I had not been aware that chronic kidney failure is called “silent killer,” Turner said, “because symptoms do not become noticeable until 80 percent of renal tissue is lost. As it happened to me, hypertension is one of the most frequent causes of kidney failure.”

Fortunately, her husband, Erwin Bach, was able to donate one of his kidneys to her in 2017, saving and extending her life. Her body kept trying to reject the new organ, and she spent months in and out of the hospital. 

“I kept feeling nauseous and dizzy, forgot things, and was scared a lot,” she wrote in early March. “These problems are still not quite resolved. I am on multiple prescriptions and take great care to follow my doctors’ orders meticulously. For I know that I can trust them and their therapies.”

During the last years of her life, Turner was a fierce advocate for kidney health and was an ambassador for the ‘Show Your Kidneys Love’ chronic kidney disease awareness campaign, launched in March of this year. Turner died peacefully at her home in Switzerland.

*Turner, T. (2023, March). My Kidneys Are Victims of My Elevated Blood Pressure [Blog Post]. Show Your Kidneys Love. https://www.showyourkidneyslove.com/articles/my-kidney-are-victims-of-my-elevated-blood-pressure-tina-turner/