Getting Educated About High Blood Pressure
High blood pressure is also known as hypertension. If one looks one may find it abbreviated in the medical charts as htn and if you have it, you have a serious health concern to deal with.
This condition can increase your risk of having heart attacks and strokes and high blood pressure is known to shorten people’s lifespans. Managing it may take a combination of drugs and lifestyle modifications.
Most high blood pressure-over 90%-is called primary hypertension. This is hypertension that is chronic and that may have no obvious cause to it. It often manifests in individuals whose families have a history of high blood pressure and is more common in older individuals.
The high blood pressure that doctors are referring to is the pressure in your blood vessels when your heart beats, this is called the systolic pressure.
The diastolic pressure is the pressure in your blood vessels during the periods between heart beats. Your doctor will take your age into consideration and measure your blood pressure. If the pressure is too high, hypertension may be an issue.
There is however, a small portion of hypertension cases which are classified as secondary hypertension. These are cases where the blood pressure is high, but the reason is other than chronic hypertension. These cases are handled by treating the underlying issue of high blood pressure.
Changing your lifestyle can sometimes have dramatic effects if you have secondary hypertension. You’ll have to speak with your doctor to find out which changes might be appropriate for you, but changing dietary habits, getting more exercise and reducing stress are usually important aspects to getting your high blood pressure down to an acceptable level.
If you have an illness that’s contributing to the high blood pressure program, treating that illness may also bring down the blood pressure, but it can sometimes take a while before doctors will be able to determine what the actual cause of the secondary hypertension is.
At this point, if you are unable to change your lifestyle to the point where it lowers your blood pressure to a healthy level, the doctor might consider putting you on medication.
This medication usually has to be adjusted to achieve the correct level of treatment, so it is sometimes unpleasant to start with. But for most people with hypertension who are undergoing treatment for it, enjoy a higher quality of life because of the fact that they are not suffering the symptoms that go along with high blood pressure.
About the author: Sam Hawkins writes about high blood pressure at What Is High Blood Pressure. Sam also covers the causes at What Causes High Blood Pressure.