High Blood Pressure

Blood pressure is the pressure with which blood is flowing round the arteries. When blood pressure is measured tWo readings are given expressed as one over the other eg 111/70. The first and higher reading is the pressure in the blood vessels when your heart is pumping blood round your arteries. It is called the systolic number. The lower reading represents the pressure in the blood vessels when the heart relaxes. It is called the diastolic number. For an adult a healthy blood pressure is considered to be below 120/80, though it is normal for it to be a little higher for pregnant women.
Blood pressure should always be measured in a calm environment and not immediately after exercise as this would raise blood pressure. Coffee and alcohol can also raise it and should not be taken immediately before testing.
High Blood pressure is categorised by doctors into three stages:
For adults:
130 to 139/ 80 to 89 Stage 1
Over 140/ 90+ Stage 2
180 or more/120 or more Hypertensive crisis requiring urgent medical attention.
Stages 1 and 2 can be accompanied by the following symptoms: headaches, chest pains, problems with sight, nosebleeds, easily getting out of breath.
One of the greatest dangers of high blood pressure is that it brings with it increased risk of a heart attack.

Treatments

With high blood pressure, one of the key and foremost lines of treatment is a change in lifestyle, this can be the most effective way of treating high blood pressure but you are also likely to require a form of medication as well.

Lifestyle

The sort of lifestyle changes that we are talking about are stopping smoking, reducing your alcohol intake levels, eating less and more healthily and doing more exercise especially if you are overweight. All of which also help reduce the risk of further complications you can get with high blood pressure such as strokes, heart attacks and damage to major organs.

Stopping smoking is top of the list, probably one of the hardest to achieve but it is the most beneficial and there are plenty of schemes and products around to help you work on this. Along with helping reduce your high blood pressure it is also key in preventing the risk of lung disease as well as improving your all round health levels.

Eating a healthier diet is a proven way to help lower blood pressure and this means eating more fruit, vegetables and fibre and reducing the amount of unhealthy foods such as those high in fat, sugar and salt. A healthier diet will also help with reducing your weight as being overweight or obese makes you more likely to suffer from high blood pressure. Within a healthy diet you would also reduce your number of alcohol units to a level of 2 units maximum per day for men and 1 unit maximum per day for women which will also help with reducing your waistline.

Add in an exercise regime where you can get in thirty minutes of aerobic exercise in a day and do this two or three times a week; this can be something as simple as a brisk walk or a local exercise class and it all works to lowering your blood pressure plus getting and maintaining a healthy weight.

Medication

Medications that you may also then be prescribed along side the lifestyle changes are going to be one of the following or maybe a combination:

ACE inhibitor or angiotensin-2 receptor blocker (ARB)

Both of these work by relaxing blood vessels, initially an ACE inhibitor such as perindopril or lisinopril may be prescribed but if these cause a patient side effect problems then they will switch to an ARB drug instead such as valsartan, irbesartan or losartan.

Calcium channel blockers

This medication works by widening the blood vessels and well known types are nifedipine, amlodipine and felodipine.

Diuretics

Also known as water pills and they work by encouraging the body to flush out excess water and salts. Examples of these drugs are indapamide and bendroflumethiazide.

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