High blood pressure

My surgery is only too keen to hand out diet sheets. My latest bombshell is that at 57kg and on a mainly veg and wholefood diet I am apparently "pre-diabetic". Not sure whether to laugh or worry but have knocked off my one choc a week.

 

I drink beetroot juice most days, just because I like it not because it lowers high blood pressure which I don't have.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...ot-juice-lowers-blood-pressure_n_1374747.html

 

The blood pressure monitor is now on order. It will be interesting to see what sort of readings we get when relaxing at home as opposed to being in the doctor's surgery, after half an hour of messing about getting the bus, keeping tabs on a crazy 3 year old, then waiting in suspense in the waiting room for half an hour while at the same time ensuring that crazy 3 year old isn't tearing the place apart.

Wife hasn't started the medication yet, she's going to wait to see how it goes over the next couple of weeks.

I think I see some lifestyle changes coming, not just for wife, but for me too. There's no point me worrying about wife but letting myself go. Might as well take the opportunity for both of us to sort ourselves out I reckon. I might even resurrect my plan to buy a nintendo wii fit kit, not the ultimate solution but another tool in the box as they say.

 

Thanks for that. I wonder if the same applies to leaf beet. It will be good if it does, because I have loads growing in the garden, and having already tried some, I can definitely say its going to be a regular crop in our garden.

 

Question - what is 'high' blood pressure anyway?

I've just been outside breaking up (what I can) of a slab of re-inforced concrete. I'm guessing any blood pressure reading taken at the time, would have had me 'on the pills' quicker than that! But it'll be fine when I've had a bit of a rest, or done something slightly less exhausting.

So, when/if I go to my GP and he takes my blood pressure, how does he know that the reading he gets isn't 'normal' for me? And by what criteria does he define 'normal'? Well, he uses a 'chart' - this is the same type of chart which classes professional rugby players as 'obese' because their BMI doesn't fit into the confines of a nice neat chart.

And 'high' is what? Higher than yesterday? Higher than the man next door? Higher still now you've told me it's high? As high as 190/100? Or just not the 'optimal' 120/80.

Y'see, that's the trouble with 'averages' - the average man, of average height, of average weight, earning the average salary, buying the average shopping basket of goods to feed the average family of four for the average price, using the average amount of water taking their average number of showers, watching the average amount of TV, drinking the average amount of alcohol and who does the average amount of exercise is probably the only one who has the average blood pressure.

And damned boring he probably is too!!

 

i am in my early thirties and have very high bp which is a result of having pre eclampsia when i had my daughter. they have to give me tablets to "reduce the risk of strokes" but they arenot very nice to take and when i had my daughter i was on three different ones. i use an omeron brand moniter and a large cuff and self monitor as the tabs dont actually reduce my bp much. i woud beg anyone who had the chance to improve their blood pressire through diet and exercise to have a go

 

A doctor (a much better one than my wife's one) once told me that the 'ideal' blood pressure figure is just silly. He said for a start, the top one means nothing much at all, its just an indicator of how strong your heart is. The bottom figure is more important, being an indicator of, as he put it, how quickly the blood can drain away from any point after the heart muscle relaxes. A high figure on the bottom therefore means your arteries are constricted, but conversely, if you had no blood at all, or were in the process of bleeding to death, the bottom figure would be very low indeed. He told me the point he was trying to make is that a blood pressure reading is just one of very many indicators, and should never be taking in isolation to mean anything at all.

 

unless you have been (or go) to a gym on a regular basis, it's perhaps inappropriate to 'slam' it

no-one said anything about 'must do' .... it's up to the individual if they 'want to do' ...

there are other forms of excercise as you say, but sadly very few people run up and down their home stairs for 20 minutes ... or run 5 miles to the shop, or cycle 100 miles a week

IMHO, going to gym is one of the best things that I have ever commited myself to do ... it eventually becomes a way of life, and you end up eating proper aswell ...

and not only that .... you also feel good and look better

obviously, you could also run 5 miles a day which will also be very good for you .... but do you?

 

Clueless, Fidgetsmum is quite right. Medics somehow want to believe that there is a 'correct' blood pressure reading, when all the evidence is that human beings are a pretty random bunch. In itself, high blood pressure isn't an illness; it's simply a risk factor. This is not to deny that it has been linked with some pretty nasty things, such as strokes, kidney problems and blindness, but it's perfectly possible to have high blood pressure for a very long time and not develop any problems at all.

The other problem is that doctors can't even decide what a normal blood pressure reading is. It used to be that, for the top reading, as long as the number wasn't higher than your age plus 100, you were OK. Then the NHS decided they didn't want anyone going much over 130. A lunatic fringe decreed that there were benefits in having a reading that wasn't much over 100. I don't know about you but I'm not happy about being put on medication when the doctors can't even decide on what they're trying to achieve.

The cynic in me also thinks that, by encouraging people to down pills by the truckload, the recent NHS interest in blood pressure is probably doing the drug companies more good than the patients. Then there's the whole cholesterol thing. The number of people who have been bunged on statins when at least some of them could probably just change their diet doesn't delight me.

I recommend the Wii, Clueless. It's not like going to a gym, but on the other hand you have to get to a gym, whereas the Wii is always sitting ready in the corner. It's great fun, too, which is half the battle.

 

there's loads to do at gym, not just cycling/running etc ... even yoga is beneficial

my teenage daughter has taken up Zumba (some type of new dance routine) ...

intensive and not as boring as running on a treadmill for 20 minutes




she also does krav maga (israeli martial arts)... new in cambridge, and very intensive... she used to do muay thai but prefers the krav maga and goes with all her college mates

 

Very succinctly put Fidgetsmum. I have succumbed to the GP's wish list over time but I am not too uncomfy with that ATM. I don't get to visit him other that a "repeat prescription review" twice a year.
One of my favourite songs is sloshing around in my head as I read this post.

Jenny
why not have a listen.....

 

Can you have zero blood pressure??

Val

 

It certainly is. Done regularly, it works on your mind as well as your body and leaves you with a wonderful sense of wellbeing. It will give you a nice toned body, with long lean muscle, not bulk. It will also burn a few calories, especially if you do your sun salutations at a speed which gets your heart going.

 

Okay, here's the official spec on blood pressure.

Bog standard text book pressure is 120/80. The 120 is called the systolic pressure and measures the pressure in the artery when the heart beats or contracts. The second number is the diastolic and measure the pressure between the main beats of the heart (there are other beats but no need to go into that here!) otherwise the resting pressure.

As ClaraLou said, many moons ago it was accepted that bp of age+100/anything in two digits was okay but they've recently (like 5-10 years ago!) found this not to be the case. First it came down to a max of 140/90 and now it's lower than that! TBH you don't have to do much to be clinically hypertensive with that protocol!

Reason they came up with this NICE and the British Hypertension Society launch updated guideline to tackle hypertension in England and Wales is that stats have shown people having strokes, heart attacks and other problems with BPs much lower than the numbers previously considered ok.

Here are the key elements:
Stage 1 hypertension Clinic blood pressure is 140/90 mmHg or higher and subsequent ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) daytime average or home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) average blood pressure is 135/85 mmHg or higher.
Stage 2 hypertension Clinic blood pressure is 160/100 mmHg or higher and subsequent ABPM daytime average or HBPM average blood pressure is 150/95 mmHg or higher.
Severe hypertension Clinic systolic blood pressure is 180 mmHg or higher, or clinic diastolic blood pressure is 110 mmHg or higher.

Whether you subscribe to all this or not is a matter of choice - or should be in my opinion. Doctors cannot and should not force anyone to take medication without a detailed discussion and monitoring of said pressure. It is a simple thing nowadays to have a 24hr monitoring device used and to thereby get an accurate study of one's blood pressure. This is much more accurate than a one off check in the surgery where any number of things might be affecting your blood pressure. You also don't know when he last had his machine calibrated - it could be way out of synch for all you know.

I have to take blood pressure as a part of H&S medicals and use an Omron machine which I've had for 18 years! It's not automatic (meaning I have to pump up the cuff by hand!) and people often scoff at such an old machine. But it's recalibrated every two years as per the manufacturer's requirements.

On top of that, if I find anyone's blood pressure a bit off, I let them rest for a few mins while we go through a simple routine questionnaire and then check it again. quite often a slightly or moderately elevated pressure will have dropped to 'normal' and is recorded as such.

I check my machine on myself every work day to ensure it is working properly and when I declined my GP's offer to check it and explained why, he actually had the brass nerve to suggest I should come into the surgery to have it checked on a "proper machine" by a "proper nurse"! What in the name of all that's holy does he think I am?!!!

 

Thank you, Daisees. Why aren't all doctors as sensible as you?

Since my surgery now runs a system under which you rarely see the same doctor twice, I've figured out how to work it to my advantage on the rare occasions when I actually use it. If I don't think much of one medic, I simply make another appointment until I find one I can deal with.

Young keen doctors straight out of medical school - very bad news. They know everything and they also know, without a shadow of a doubt, that the latest wisdom is the correct one.

Older, bored doctors - much better. They've been round the block enough times to know there's no magic bullet and they're much more likely to do no more than is absolutely necessary.