Treatment for high blood pressure

Once a person knows he has high blood pressure, he should work with his doctor to treat it.  Healthy lifestyle behaviors such as exercising and losing weight (if you need to) may improve your blood pressure. Many prescription blood pressure medicines are available for treating high blood pressure.  A person should never stop taking his prescribed blood pressure medicine without his doctor’s approval.  More information about high blood pressure (hypertension) can be found at WebMd http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/guide/default.htm

 

Can we prevent high blood pressure?

Can we prevent high blood pressure? When we talk preventing high blood pressure, we talk about risk factors.  Some risk factors we cannot change (our inherited genes and family history of high blood pressure).  We cannot change our age.  The things we can modify involves lifestyle behaviors.  These include

·        Exercising

·        Keeping our weight within a normal level. If we are overweight, we can work to improve our weight.

·        Not Smoking—smoking is believed to harm our cardiovascular system

·        Decreasing salt in our diet –limiting salt helps lower our blood pressure because salt holds extra fluids in our body

·        Managing our Stress

·        Drinking too much alcohol (recommended maximum one drink/day per women, two drinks/day for men

http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/guide/blood-pressure-causes

What are symptoms of high blood pressure?

You may not experience any symptoms of high blood pressure.  This condition can be sneaky and quiet, harming your body while you don’t recognize it.  But testing for blood pressure is easy and quick.  A person’s blood pressure can be checked easily by a manual or battery powered blood pressure cuff machine.  If your family members deal with high blood pressure issues, you may have inherited this tendency; you should have your blood pressure checked periodically to make sure your blood pressure is normal. 

If a person’s blood pressure is extremely high, he may feel symptoms such as severe headache, fatigue, vision problems, pounding pressure in chest, neck or ears, confusion, chest pain, being short of breath, irregular heartbeat or passing blood in urine.  Anyone experiencing these symptoms (of stroke and/or heart attack) needs to get medical care immediately by calling 911. http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/guide/hypertension-symptoms-high-blood-pressure

So I have high blood pressure... so what???

What happens when a person’s blood pressure is high? When a person has high blood pressure, his heart must work harder to pump blood to all parts of the body.  Many people who have high blood pressure do not feel any symptoms.  Uncontrolled high blood pressure can quietly damage major organs such as your heart, brain and kidneys.  High blood pressure increases a person’s risk of stroke, kidney failure, eye problems and heart disease.  http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/guide/blood-pressure-causes  What are symptoms of high blood pressure?  More next time

 

High blood pressure (hypertension)

The next time you are in a group of people, look around. Pick out three of those individuals and statistically, one of those three people has high blood pressure.  That means 67 million (one third) Americans have high blood pressure.  Of that 67 million people, only half of them (36 million) are being treated for their high blood pressure.  These numbers make high blood pressure the “number two public health enemy” by officials at the Centers for Disease Control. 

 What is high blood pressure (hypertension)? Blood pressure numbers involve the pressure inside your arteries when your heart has contracted and squeezed the blood into the artery (that’s the top number) and when your heart is at rest (that’s the bottom number).  The top number (let’s use 120/80 as an example of a blood pressure) 120 is the systolic pressure and this number reflects the pressure inside your blood vessels when you heart pumps blood out to the body.  The bottom number (80) is called diastolic blood pressure.  It shows the pressure inside your blood vessels when your heart is resting. In the past a “normal” blood pressure was 120/80. There has been talk about lowering that ideal blood pressure number to 110/70. I noticed at my annual wellness meeting, the ideal blood pressure number is listed as 110/70. Doctors talk about high blood pressure (called hypertension) when your blood pressure numbers are higher than 120/80.

More about high blood pressure next time.

Heart Disease and Women

Do you know that heart disease is the No. 1 killer of both men and women?  Every 90 seconds a woman in America suffers a heart attack.  Every 90 seconds… And here’s another disturbing fact, only 56% of women know that heart disease ranks top of the killer list (above cancer). 

What are symptoms of heart attack in women?  Aren’t they the same symptoms that men feel?  Maybe but not always.  Men often have the pressure/discomfort in chest—“feel like an elephant sitting on my chest” They may have radiating pain up into neck/jaw/throat.

According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), women’s symptoms may vary from no symptoms to dull and heavy, sharp chest pain or discomfort.  The pain may radiate to abdomen or back and may also radiate to neck, jaw, throat.  These symptoms may happen when resting or being active.  Mental stress can also trigger these symptoms.  http://www.cdc.gov/Features/WearRed/ 

Women may deal with subtle symptoms such as indigestion and fatigue.  Do you find yourself exhausted quickly and become short of breath, without good reason?  Check into those symptoms, ladies.  The quicker you get help for heart attack symptoms, the better your results will be. Remember your heart is a muscle and it needs a good blood supply to function.  When the blood supply to your heart is diminished or shut-off, you will be at risk of a heart attack.  Seek help. 

In the news--Energy drinks may affect our hearts

One evening last week, I drank my favorite soda.  When I was still wide awake at 2am, I was kicking myself.  I usually go caffeine free during my evenings and do not experience that frustrating sleepless night.  Lesson learned—again.  I recently saw an interesting article about energy drinks. 

German researchers are speculating that energy drinks with caffeine, sugar and taurine, an amino acid believed to enhance athletic performance. may affect our hearts.  These researchers took 18 healthy individuals and tested their heart function by getting MRI imaging.  An hour after the test subjects had drank an energy drink, their heart rate was up 6%.  As a comparison, the researchers had the same 18 test subjects drink a caffeinated drink (not the sugar and taurine) and their heart rates did not increase. This article can be found at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131202082640.htm

Now what does that mean to me (and you)?  For healthy people with no heart disease, this study may not mean anything.  It’s interesting to know that energy drinks may cause rapid heart rates.  Some people (like my husband) seem to be sensitive to caffeine.  A few years ago, Hubby noticed he was having rapid heartbeats and feeling bad.  He had tests done such as EKG and stress tests and passed all.  Our family doctor suggested he get off caffeine; he decreased and gradually stopped the caffeine.  Guess what, his rapid heart rate returned to normal and he started to feel better.  I suspect we will hear more about energy drinks and their effect on our health.