High Blood Pressure-Selfcare

High blood pressure is so common in our Indian population that every family has one direct relative is suffering from it. Let us understand the basics of it so that you may not be misguided by street advisors and spoil your health and money. First of all you need to know what is Blood Pressure?

Our body is a collection of trillions of building blocks called cells and all of them need energy to work smoothly. For their energy they need glucose and oxygen for burning glucose in your cell. Glucose comes from food you eat and oxygen comes from air you breathe. Both of them reaches blood from digestive and respiratory system respectively. Blood distributes glucose and oxygen to body cells through tubes called blood vessels. For the circulation of blood in those tubes are carried out by pump called heart. It squeezes to force blood in the tubes and relaxes to refill the returning blood from all body parts. The tubes which take blood away from the heart is called artery and the tubes return the blood to heart is called vein.

Commonly we measure the blood pressure of brachial artery located in both the arms. Blood pressure during squeeze of heart is called systolic blood pressure, and blood pressure during refilling and relaxing is called diastolic blood pressure. Its common unit of measurement is mmHg(millimeter of mercury).It is written as systolic/diastolic(for example 120/80 mmHg).In bracketed example,120 is the systolic blood pressure and 80 is diastolic blood pressure.

Many people are confused regarding normal values.Generally the normal value for systolic blood pressure is 100-139 and the normal value of diastolic blood pressure is 60-90 mmHg.

If your value is below range you have low blood pressure or hypotension(systolic less than 100 and diastolic less than 60).If your value is above the range you have high blood pressure or hypertension(systolic more than 139 and diastolic more than 90).

Apart from this if you have history of other diseases your cut-off values may be lower. Leave this to your physician to decide.

If you have never recorded high blood pressure in past you should not be panic if you have got the reading above the range. First you need to confirm by taking your blood pressure by standard operating protocol(SOP).For blood pressure recording your body should be relaxed for 5 minutes, lying on bed or sitting on chair with arm support ,your arm should be rested on firm surface and three recording should be taken and the average value of the three is your blood pressure. The process should be repeated after 24 hours.

Inadequate sleep, fasting, faulty technique, improper cuff size may give false high reading of blood pressure.

If you are confirmed that you have high blood pressure; you should consider of improving your lifestyle to minimize it.

Following measure you can take for your high blood pressure control:

1.Low salt intake: If you reduce your daily salt consumption to minimum, you can reduce your blood pressure to great extent. Here by salt I mean sodium chloride/table salt/white salt. Sodium increases the blood pressure.

2.Weight reduction: By weight reduction your blood pressure can be lowered. In your particular case you should know your ideal weight for your height .If your height is 170 centimeter ,your weight should be around 70 kg. So ideal weight in kg = height in centimeter minus 100.

3.Yoga and meditation helps in blood pressure reduction upto 5 to 10 mmHg

4.Taking adequate amount of water :If you take adequate water you would have more urine formation and more salt loss from your body in urine.(warning: this should not more than 3 liter in 24 hours under general condition, quantity may increase when you are required to work in hot environment and may decrease if you are directed by your doctor or limitation imposed by your dietitian for some diseases.

5.Taking potassium in adequate amount also reduces the blood pressure. Fruits and vegetables contain potassium in good amount.

6.Tea and coffee has diuretic action. Means they increase urine formation and cause loss of sodium in urine.

7.Avoid steroid in medicine. If you are taking it already it should not be stopped abruptly, rather it should be curtailed gradually(tailing off).

8.Reduce mental conflict and improve interpersonal relationship. Try to accept the situation. Interact with people and family.

9.Entertain yourself and keep balance of personal and professional life.

Hypertension must be treated as early as possible because if you ignore your high blood pressure, your heart size increases due to high workload and may go into heart failure. High blood pressure also increases the risk of heart attack and brain hemorrhage. Follow your physician’s advice strictly. If you are advised to take medicines for your blood pressure ,you should go for regular check up to maintain your pressure in the normal range. Your doctor would decide the medicine and dose adjustment. Don’t rely on common people’s advice. Even if your blood pressure reached normal after taking medicine, you are required continue as your doctor has advised. Many people leave the treatment after normalization because even after skipping the dose for 14 days ,their blood pressure remains normal. They think that their blood pressure is normalized and no further medicine is needed. Blood pressure gets normalized due to the effect of the medicine remaining in their body. After one to two months that stored medicine gets completely eliminated from their body and their blood pressure again rises to their premedication level. And this time they are totally careless.

It is worthy to note that during heavy exercise, climbing and sexual intercourse, even the normal people’s blood pressure reach 170/110 or more. In such situations those people who have hypertension may reach beyond 200/140 or so. Such a high pressure may lead to rupture of blood vessels in brain causing intracerebral hemorrhage and paralysis.

So Beware Of This silent Killer!

Stay healthy

Thank You