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Unfortunately, the president of the American Heart Association, John Warner, MD, was unavailable to discuss the new guidelines at a press briefing Monday following a "mild heart attack" Monday morning at the AHA's annual scientific meetings session in Anaheim.
What a new announcement and then the AHA president has a mild heart attack. Oh brother. I checked in with the MD a couple weeks ago and just the added stress of getting there etc and what we go thru to get to MD, my BP was taken right away and it came in at 150/90's and they were not alarmed, this is so normal for me...if taken later during the appt my BP would have been much lower. But we forgot to take it again. I take BP meds and can only believe "they" just want to get people on meds so much sooner AGAIN. Even good to take it 3 times at MD appts.
The best thing is to buy an inexpensive blood pressure device - only $20 or $30 or a little more at amazon.com or walmart.com or target.com - and keep track of your own blood pressure at home every other day or once a week or every day for a while and then at intervals every couple of weeks or once per month or less frequently.
I've had one for many years and keep track of my blood pressure at home.
(in addition to having it taken at your doctor's office)
Last edited by matisse12; 11-13-2017 at 08:44 PM..
I've been doing the monitoring at home for years....I don't anymore. Was driving myself nuts with the numbers, writing down what I ate, what time of day, my thoughts, stress or not etc etc..
While in the rehabs and all that stress my BP was taken 3 times a day and it was always fine and I was on my same BP meds.
Watch the sodium, cut out the alcohol or cut way back, and learn to meditate, as this helps a lot.
Its been explained to me a million times and I can still never remember what those numbers mean. I just now if its too high you're at risk for a stroke.
Its been explained to me a million times and I can still never remember what those numbers mean. I just now if its too high you're at risk for a stroke.
The top number is called the “Systolic”pressure & it measures the pressure your heart exerts while beating.
The bottom number is called the “Diastolic” & it measures the amount of pressure in your arteries between beats.
I actually had a doctors appointment today & ironically 130/80 was my exact blood pressure.
That’s high for me but not enough to be concerning. I sort of suspected that it would be because I ate fast food last night & I remember thinking it was saltier that usual.
Sure enough, I woke up with puffy eyes this morning ... it would have been weird if it wasn’t elevated, actually.
The top number is called the “Systolic”pressure & it measures the pressure your heart exerts while beating.
The bottom number is called the “Diastolic” & it measures the amount of pressure in your arteries between beats.
Right. I describe it this way-- say you have a 100 lb barbell and you're doing military presses. You have to exert 100 lb of pressure just to hold it still at your collar bones-- that's "diastolic." Then you have to exert more than 100 lb to lift it to arms length over your head. That effort to move it is "systolic."
Salt does not cause hi BP (except in certain types of renal failure, although limiting salt can bring hi bp down (due to dehydration. Is that good for you?)
Little known fact: a poor night's sleep will elevate your bp much of the next day. You make extra adrenalin to stay awake.
Alcohol & caffeine elevate bp only while they're in your system. Both have beneficial effects on heart health that outweigh the elevated bp. (Like I said earlier-- it's not the hi bp per se that's bad.)
There's a difference between the condition Hypertension (bp always hi) vs appropriately elevated bp on occasion (bp normal while resting and elevated when anxious, when aggravated, when alert, when in pain, when working/exercising, when thinking (!) etc-- bp is like your heart rate--it changes with conditions.
I have the unusual thing of having low blood pressure. It is almost never above 110/70. Interestingly, when I was younger it was much higher. 130/80 regularly. I do not know what happened but my best bet is related to taking vitamin D.
The warning I would give though is that my mother constantly poo pooed BP meds. Her BP was constantly high. 140/80 to 150/90... and she ended up with congestive heart failure. It just put too much pressure on the heart. I never hear doctors state this plainly as a concern from high BP.
On the other hand... the real question is why do so much of the population have this high BP if it is really high? Just like cholesterol isn't it possible that different people have different readings?
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