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High blood pressure (also called hypertension) is a condition that indicates that the force your heart is using to pump blood through your arteries to the organs and appendages of your body is higher than normal. Basically, if your arteries become hardened or are not performing at peak condition, it becomes harder for the heart to pump blood through them, making it work extra hard. This can put unwanted strain on the heart that can result in fatal scenarios like heart attack, stroke and cardiac arrest.
When you visit a doctor or take your own blood pressure, you receive two reading numbers which indicate your blood pressure level. If you consistently have a reading of 140 over 90 or higher for a couple of weeks, you may have high blood pressure and this should be investigated further.
You can also have high blood pressure if only one of the numbers is higher, so if just one of the numbers is high, this should be investigeted as well.
Because there are no real, reliable symptoms that indicate high blood pressure without a high rate of false positives, it is important that you know your blood pressure numbers. This is even more important if you or your family has a history of high blood pressure.
It is also important to get your blood pressure checked frequently. Because there are a number of things that can alter your blood pressure naturally (including sleep or lack of, exercise, food, salt, stress, sickness, time of day, etc.), it is important that you have frequent measurements so that you can see if there is a pattern of high blood pressure, or just a reaction to outside stimuli that won’t necessarily mean that you have high blood pressure.
There are many devastaing results that can come about from high blood pressure which is why it’s so important to monitor and keep yours in check. The following can all occur as a result of high blood pressure:
In addition to these, persons with underlying medical conditions such as diabetes and kidney disease become not only more susceptible to risk from high blood pressure, but to risks associated with their specific underlying diseases as well. For instance, a person with diabetes is 20 times more likely to require leg amputation with high blood pressure than without it. This is why monitoring your blood pressure is extremely significant for those in poor health.
There are many causes of high blood pressure and any of them can be combined to increase your risk. It is important that you look at each cause when determining the lifestyle changes you need to address in order to lower your blood pressure. Here are some warning signs to look out for as causes for high blood pressure:
Of course, these are not the only causes of high blood pressure. There are some other factors that you can’t change which is why there are many treatments available to lower blood pressure:
The treatment for high blood pressure depends on a number of factors because there is never just one pure, solitary cause. For instance, most medication prescription will be based on:
Convexly, if your blood pressure seems to be treatable through lifestyle changes, doctors will often recommend:
High Blood Pressure Causes 62% of all Strokes and 49% of all Heart Attacks... Check your BP on the blood pressure chart. If the chart shows you are in the prehypertension or hypertension ranges, do something about it, even if it is just having a chat with your doctor. The blood pressure chart is for all adults regardless of age, as whilst your age rises, the thresholds for prehypertension and hypertension don't! (there is no blood pressure chart by age!) No matter what your age - if your BP is above 140/90 you should set about lowering it. You can record and monitor your readings on our printable blood pressure log.