High Blood Pressure is one of the incurable diseases that everybody needs to be educated on, as prevention is better than cure.
ANOTHER name for high blood pressure is hypertension. It is called a silent killer because it doesn’t usually have symptoms. It is normal for blood pressure to go up and down throughout the day but it mustn’t stay up.
When the pressure of the blood stays up, there is bound to be hypertension. Blood pressure is a measure of how hard the blood pushes against the walls of your arteries, as it moves through the body. Immediately the blood is high, the blood vessels, heart and kidneys start to damage. This can lead to heart attack, stroke and other problems. High blood pressure kills silently because it doesn’t manifest symptoms while it is causing these damages.
High blood pressure is of two types; the Systolic and Diastolic. In the medical world, it is affirmed that someone with Systolic pressure of 120 and a diastolic pressure of 80 has blood pressure of 120/80 or “120 over 80.”
The Systolic number shows how hard the blood pushes when the heart is pumping while the Diastolic number shows how hard the blood pushes between heartbeats when the heart is released and filled with blood.
Going by the advice given by the medical practitioners, an adult should have a blood pressure of less than 120/80. It is high blood pressure when it is 140/90 or higher. Many people fall into the category in between, called prehypertension. People with prehypertension need to make life-style changes to bring the blood pressure down and help prevent or delay high blood pressure.
What causes high blood pressure?
In most cases, doctors said they can’t point to the exact cause. However, several things are known to raise blood pressure, including being very overweight, excessive intake of alcohol, having a family history of high blood pressure, eating too much salt and getting older.
It is also said that blood pressure may also rise if you are not very active, if one does not eat enough potassium and calcium nor has a condition called insulin resistance.
What are the symptoms?
High blood pressure doesn’t usually cause symptoms. Most people don’t know they have it until they go to the doctor for some other reasons. High blood pressure needs serious treatment because it can damage the heart, brain, kidneys or eyes. These damages may also cause problems like coronary artery disease, stroke and kidney failure.
Furthermore, high blood pressure can cause headaches, vision problems, nausea and vomiting. Malignant high blood pressure (hypertensive crisis) which is blood pressure that rises very fast can also cause these symptoms. Malignant high blood pressure needs a medical emergency.
How is high blood pressure diagnosed?
The way most people find out they have high blood pressure is through or during a routine visit to the doctor visit. For the doctor to find out that one has high blood pressure, it must be at least 140/90 on three or more separate occasions. It is usually measured 1 to 2 weeks apart.
How can it be treated?
The treatment of high blood pressure depends on how high your blood pressure is, whether one has other health problems such as diabetes and whether any organ has already been damaged. Doctors will also consider how likely one is to develop other diseases, especially heart disease.
One can help lower one’s high blood pressure by making healthy changes in one’s lifestyle. If those lifestyle changes don’t work, one may also need to take pills. Either way, high blood pressure can be controlled through lifetime.
If there is prehypertension, doctors will likely recommend lifestyle changes. These may include losing extra weight, exercising, limiting alcohol, cutting back on salt, quitting smoking and eating low-fat dairy foods.
If the high blood pressure is without any organ damage or other risk factors for heart disease, doctors may recommend medicine in addition to making lifestyle changes.
On the other hand, if the high blood pressure comes with some other organ damage or other risk factors for heart disease, there might be need to try various combination of medicines in addition to making big lifestyle changes.
Most people take more than one pill for high blood pressure. Work with your doctor to find the right pill or combination of pills that will cause minimal side effects.
It can be hard to remember to take pills when you have no symptoms. But the blood pressure will go back up if the medicines are not taken regularly. The pill schedule should be made as simple as possible. They should be taken at the time when doing other things like eating a meal or getting ready for bed.
What can be done to prevent high blood pressure?
There are six lifestyle changes that can help prevent high blood pressure:
1. Lose weight
2. Eat less salt
3. Exercise
4. Limit alcohol to 2 drinks a day (for men) and 1 drink a day for women and lighter weight men.
5. Get 3,500 mg of potassium in your diet every day. Fresh unprocessed whole foods have the most potassium. These foods include meat, fish, and non-fat and low-fat products, fruits vegetables.
6. Follow the DASH eating plan (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension). This diet is rich in fruits and low-fat dairy products.
Bamidele O.
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