High Blood Pressure
You might say that having a routine check-up won’t do you any good and it’s just a waste of time. Why do they have to check your BP when the one hurting is your foot! Why not just go ahead and check your foot! This is because by itself, there is no signs of high blood pressure and it is usually found incidentally - "case finding" - by healthcare professionals during a routine checkup.
The force of blood pushing against the walls of the arteries as the heart pumps out blood is called “blood pressure”. This blood pressure can damage the body in many ways if it rises and stays high over time. Even when you’re feeling fine, it is important to know your blood pressure numbers so that you will have a reference to compare if your next blood pressure measurement is normal or not.
By knowing your normal blood pressure, you and your health care team can keep it that way. And in the event that it gets too high, you can seek early treatment to prevent damage to your body’s organs.
When we say blood pressure numbers, this includes systolic and diastolic pressures. The pressure when the heart beats while pumping blood is called systolic blood pressure, while the diastolic blood pressure is the pressure when the heart is at rest between beats.
Normally, blood pressure should stay less than or equal to 120/80 mmHg (The mmHg is millimeters of mercury – the units used to measure blood pressure.) Although you have normal blood pressure, it still tends to go up and down but if your numbers stay above normal most of the time, you’re at risk. For those people who have diabetes or chronic kidney disease, high blood pressure is defined as 130/80 mmHg or higher.
If high blood pressure stays high over time, it may cause damage to the body and some of these are:
- Kidney failure – blood vessels in the kidney may narrow
- Vision changes or blindness – blood vessels in the eyes may burst or bleed
- Heart failure – the heart may get larger or weaker; a condition in which the heart can’t pump enough blood throughout the body
- Arteries throughout the body may narrow in some places – this limits blood flow especially to the heart, brain, kidneys, and legs; can cause a heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, or amputation of part of the leg
- Aneurysms may form in blood vessels – an abnormal bulge or “ballooning” in the wall of an artery; common spots for aneurysms are the main artery that carries blood from the heart to the body, the arteries in the brain, legs, and intestines, and the artery leading to the spleen
With age, blood pressure tends to rise. But having a healthy lifestyle helps some people delay or prevent this rise in blood pressure. There are ways to control high blood pressure and some of them are: following a healthy lifestyle; having ongoing medical care; and following the treatment plan that your doctor prescribes.
It can be hard in making lifestyle changes so start by making one healthy lifestyle change and then adopt others. There are people who can control their blood pressures with lifestyle changes alone but if your doctor prescribes medicines as a part of your treatment plan, keep up your healthy habits for this will help you better control your blood pressure.
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