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What Should I Do If My Blood Pressure Is High

Eat More Foods High In Magnesium

Blood Pressure: How High is Too High and How Do I Lower it Safely?

A small study in the International Journal of Hypertension found magnesium supplementation can reduce blood pressure in small amountsNguyen H, Odelola OA, Rangaswami J, Amanullah A. A Review of Nutritional Factors in Hypertension Management. International Journal of Hypertension. 2013 698940. . Talk to your doctor before taking magnesium supplements, especially if you have kidney disease. You can also safely incorporate high-magnesium foods into your diet. Dr. Desai recommends foods like leafy green vegetables and unsalted almonds.

How Do I Know If I Have High Blood Pressure

Theres only one way to know if you have high blood pressure: Have a doctor or other health professional measure it. Measuring your blood pressure is quick and painless.

Talk with your health care team about regularly measuring your blood pressure at home, also called self-measured blood pressure monitoring.

High blood pressure is called the silent killer because it usually has no warning signs or symptoms, and many people do not know they have it.

Ptsd And High Blood Pressure

A growing body of research has linked post-traumatic stress disorder to high blood pressure.

Researchers arent sure about the mechanism underlying the relationship between PTSD and high blood pressure, but it may have something to do with higher levels of inflammation in patients with PTSD, which may increase blood pressure.

Since PTSD has a much higher incidence in veterans, experts say screening for high blood pressure should be routine not only in active soldiers who are at risk, but also for those who are no longer active and receive care from Veterans Affairs hospitals.

The AHA is the nations oldest and largest nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting heart disease, as well as its major risk factors, including high blood pressure. The AHA funds lifesaving research and advocates for people affected by all heart-related issues. You can also find diet and lifestyle tips for getting your blood pressure under control.

Million Hearts is a national initiative led by the CDC and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Its goal is to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes within five years. It focuses on small steps people can take to reduce risk factors for these heart events, including blood pressure control.

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Causes Of Sudden High Blood Pressure

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of out every three American adults suffers from diagnosed high blood pressure with only one half keeping their pressure under control. Sudden high blood pressure usually occurs to a small percentage of people with high blood pressure. This can include young adults, including a high number of African-American men, and those experiencing:

  • Collagen vascular disorders
  • Pregnancy-induced high blood pressure

Sudden high blood pressure can also be brought on by daily activities and practices.

  • Medication use such as over-the-counter pain relievers, a combination of various medications, and abuse of cocaine and marijuana can spike blood pressure levels.
  • Smoking can cause a sudden increase in blood pressure as the chemicals, including nicotine, damage the linings of our blood vessels.
  • Diet habits are critical to maintaining normal blood pressure levels as the bad fat and sodium found in many foods increase the blood solute content. It also can build up and block the blood vessels, leading to major heart trouble such as a stroke.
  • Stress is part of our everyday life and becoming anxious about your worries can increase risk for spikes in blood pressure twofold.
  • Medical conditions like kidney disease, spinal injuries, adrenal gland tumors, thyroid issues, and scleroderma can raise blood pressure rapidly.

Youre Experiencing Regular High Blood Pressure At 20+ Weeks Pregnant

What should I do if I

Many moms-to-be experience slightly elevated blood pressure while pregnant, a condition called gestational hypertension. However, blood pressure readings of 140/90, especially after 20 weeks of pregnancy, can point to a pregnancy complication called preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is thought to be caused by abnormalities in the extra blood vessels that develop to send blood to the placenta. Left untreated, it can lead to serious health complications for both baby and mother, including preterm birth.

To monitor for preeclampsia, your doctor should measure your blood pressure regularly during your prenatal checkups and check for excess protein in your urine . While preeclampsia can develop slowly, it can also onset suddenly. If you are monitoring your blood pressure at home and notice levels regularly above 140/90 OR if you are experiencing symptoms such as severe headaches or changes in vision, contact your doctor immediately and go to the emergency room.

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Cut Back On Sugar And Refined Carbohydrates

Many studies show that restricting sugar and refined carbohydrates can help you lose weight and lower your blood pressure.

Sugar, especially fructose, may increase your blood pressure more than salt, according to one 2014 review. In trials lasting at least 8 weeks, sugar increased blood pressure by 5.6 mm Hg diastolic and 6.9 mm Hg systolic .

A 2020 study that compared various popular diets found that for people who with more weight or obesity, low carb and low fat diets lowered their diastolic blood pressure by an average of about 5 mm Hg and their systolic blood pressure 3 mm Hg after 6 months .

Another benefit of a low carb, low sugar diet is that you feel fuller longer, because youre consuming more protein and fat.

Can High Blood Pressure Be Prevented Or Avoided

If your high blood pressure is caused by lifestyle factors, you can take steps to reduce your risk:

  • Lose weight.
  • Reduce your alcohol consumption.
  • Learn relaxation methods.

If your high blood pressure is caused by disease or the medicine you take, talk to your doctor. He or she may be able to prescribe a different medicine. Additionally, treating any underlying disease can help reduce your high blood pressure.

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How Can You Reduce Your Risk Of High Blood Pressure

Fortunately, there are certain things you can do to help reduce your risk of developing high blood pressure. These include the following:

  • Eat right: A healthy diet is an important step in keeping your blood pressure normal. The DASH diet emphasizes adding fruits, vegetables and whole grains to your diet while reducing the amount of sodium. Since its rich in fruits and vegetables, which are naturally lower in sodium than many other foods, the DASH diet makes it easier to eat less salt and sodium.
  • Keep a healthy weight: Going hand-in-hand with a proper diet is keeping a healthy weight. Since being overweight increases your blood pressure, losing excess weight with diet and exercise will help lower your blood pressure to healthier levels.
  • Cut down on salt: The recommendation for salt in your diet is to have less than 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day . To prevent hypertension, you should keep your salt intake below this level. Don’t forget that most restaurant foods and many processed and frozen foods contain high levels of salt. Use herbs and spices that do not contain salt in recipes to flavor your food do not add salt at the table.
  • Keep active: Even simple physical activities, such as walking, can lower your blood pressure .
  • Drinkalcoholin moderation: Having more than one drink a day and two drinks a day can raise blood pressure.

Eat Healthy High Protein Foods

Best Ways To Lower Your High Blood Pressure

A long-term study concluded in 2014 found that people who ate more protein had a lower risk of high blood pressure. For those who ate an average of 100 grams of protein per day, there was a 40 percent lower risk of having high blood pressure than those on a low protein diet .

Those who also added regular fiber into their diet saw up to a 60 percent reduction of risk.

However, a high protein diet may not be for everyone. Those with kidney disease may need to use caution. Its best to talk with your doctor.

Its fairly easy to consume 100 grams of protein daily on most types of diets.

A 3.5-ounce serving of salmon can have as much as 22 grams of protein, while a 3.5-ounce serving of chicken breast might contain 30 grams of protein.

With regard to vegetarian options, a half-cup serving of most types of beans contains 7 to 10 grams of protein. Two tablespoons of peanut butter would provide 8 grams .

These supplements are readily available and have demonstrated promise for lowering blood pressure:

Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid

Adding omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids or fish oil to your diet can have many benefits.

A meta-analysis of fish oil and blood pressure found a mean blood pressure reduction in those with high blood pressure of 4.5 mm Hg systolic and 3.0 mm Hg diastolic .

Whey protein

This protein complex derived from milk may have several health benefits in addition to possibly lowering blood pressure .

Magnesium

Citrulline

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Why Is It Dangerous To Lower My Blood Pressure Too Quickly

Before we talk about specific examples, lets learn why its dangerous to lower your blood pressure too quickly. Your heart and blood vessels carry blood to all your body parts, including large, important organs that keep you alive, like your lungs and especially your brain. Large drops in blood pressure can suddenly stop your brain from getting the continuous blood flow and oxygen it needs. This can lead to a stroke and permanent brain damage.

What Is High Blood Pressure Symptoms Causes Diagnosis Treatment And Prevention

High blood pressure, also called hypertension, is a common disease that occurs when the pressure in your arteries is higher than it should be.

Blood pressure is the force of blood pushing against the walls of the arteries as the heart pumps blood throughout the body. If left untreated, high blood pressure can lead to health problems, such as heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, vision loss, and more.

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How Can I Treat High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure is very treatable. Treatment includes medications and changes you can make in your everyday life. Changes you can make to lower your blood pressure include:

  • Eating less salt

In some cases, making these changes may be enough to lower your blood pressure. If your blood pressure remains high, you may need to start taking medication to bring it down.

Symptoms Of Sudden High Blood Pressure

High Blood Pressure (Hypertension)

Unlike traditional high blood pressure, where there are no visual symptoms until major damage has occurred, sudden high blood pressure alerts you immediately.

  • Weakness or numbness in arms, legs, face
  • Mentality changes such as anxiety, fatigue, confusion, restlessness

In extreme cases of sudden high blood pressure, there may be bleeding from damaged blood vessels, blindness from ruptured retina nerves or vessels, and possibly seizures.

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High Blood Pressure Chart

  • congenital conditions, such as Cushings syndrome, acromegaly, or pheochromocytoma

Sometimes, there is no apparent cause. In this case, a doctor will diagnose primary hypertension.

Consuming a high fat diet, carrying excess weight, drinking a lot of alcohol, smoking tobacco, and the use of some medications also increase the risk.

Treatment will depend on several factors, including:

  • how high the blood pressure is
  • the risk of cardiovascular disease or a stroke

The doctor will recommend different treatments as blood pressure increases. For slightly high blood pressure, they may suggest making lifestyle changes and monitoring the blood pressure.

If blood pressure is high, they will recommend medication. The options may change over time, according to how severe the hypertension is and whether complications arise, such as kidney disease. Some people may need a combination of several different medications.

Finding And Treating Underlying Causes And Making Lifestyle Changes Will Help

Many people have high blood pressure in older age, and sometimes its hard to control. That problem is called resistant hypertension blood pressure that stays above a set goal, such as 140/90 millimeters of mercury , despite taking three classes of blood pressure drugs at the highest tolerable doses. The condition is a major risk factor for stroke, heart disease, dementia, and more. What can you do to tame it?

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Consider Cutting Back On Caffeine

Caffeine raises your blood pressure, but the effect is temporary.

In a 2017 study, the systolic blood pressure of 18 participants was elevated for 2 hours after they drank 32 ounces of either a caffeinated drink or an energy drink. Blood pressure then dropped more quickly for the participants who drank a caffeinated drink .

Some people may be more sensitive to caffeine than others. If youre caffeine-sensitive, you may want to cut back on your coffee consumption, or try .

Research on caffeine, including its health benefits, is in the news a lot. The choice of whether to cut back depends on many individual factors.

One older study indicated that caffeines effect on raising blood pressure is greater if your blood pressure is already high. This same study, however, called for more research on the subject .

If your blood pressure is very high or doesnt decrease after making these lifestyle changes, your doctor may recommend prescription drugs.

They work and will improve your long-term outcome, especially if you have other risk factors (

The Shoulds Of Properly Taking Your High Blood Pressure Drugs

How to lower blood pressure in MINUTES

Why is it so important to take your high blood pressure drugs properly? It’s not just to make your doctor happy or to make your life more complicated. Taking high blood pressure medicine properly provides you the best results, lowering your blood pressure to a healthier level. You should take high blood pressure medicine properly because:

  • That’s how your doctor can tell whether the medicine is working to lower your blood pressure.
  • Taking medicine at the wrong doses or times or stopping high blood pressure medicine suddenly can be downright dangerous to your health.
  • If your blood pressure remains too high, you’re more likely to develop other serious problems such as heart attacks, stroke, or kidney disease.

The good news is that taking high blood pressure medicine properly helps ensure better health for yourself now and in the future.

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Try These Medicinal Herbs

Herbal medicines have long been used in many cultures to treat a variety of ailments.

Some herbs have even been shown to possibly lower blood pressure. However, more research is needed to identify the doses and components in the herbs that are most useful.

Always check with your doctor or pharmacist before taking herbal supplements. They may interfere with your prescription medications.

Heres a partial list of plants and herbs that are used by cultures throughout the world to lower blood pressure:

  • black bean
  • river lily
  • Avoid daytime naps.
  • Make your bedroom comfortable.

The 2010 national Sleep Heart Health Study found that regularly sleeping fewer than 7 hours a night and more than 9 hours a night was associated with an increased rate of high blood pressure.

Regularly sleeping fewer than 5 hours a night was linked to a significant risk of high blood pressure long term .

Take Your High Blood Pressure Drugs Exactly As Prescribed

High blood pressure drugs work best if you take them as your doctor has prescribed them. So you need to take the right amount at the right times every day. Ask your doctor or pharmacist these questions:

  • How much of the medication should I take?
  • How often should I take it?
  • Are there special instructions, such as to take the drug with food?
  • What should I do if I miss a dose?

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Sudden Spike In Blood Pressure Can Be Serious

Blood pressure is a measurement of the force that blood applies to your arterial walls as it pumps from your heart throughout your body. It also represents how hard your heart is working to push the blood. When blood pressure is higher, it means the heart must work harder to push blood through your system. In turn, the risk of heart disease or heart attack increases.

According to 2014 data, high blood pressure accounts for roughly 1,100 deaths every day in the United States, and only about half of all people with high blood pressure have it under control.

Disturbingly, most people may not even be aware that they have the condition, or are at least on the verge of becoming hypertensive. Some risk factors for high blood pressure include:

  • Prehypertension
  • Eating a high sodium/low potassium diet
  • Not getting enough exercise/physical activity
  • Overactive thyroid
  • Overactive adrenal glands

A normal blood pressure is in the range of 120 mmHg/80 mmHg . The higher number represents systolic blood pressure and the lower represents diastolic. Prehypertension arises when systolic and diastolic pressures exceed these numbers, and hypertensionor high blood pressurearises when blood pressure reaches 140 mmHg/90mmHg.

Sometimes, however, something causes blood pressure to spike unexpectedlyand the higher your resting blood pressure is, the greater your risk of suffering a severe cardiac event becomes. Therefore, knowing how to lower blood pressure fast is very important.

Black Americans And High Blood Pressure

What should I do if I

According to the CDC, high blood pressure is more common in non-Hispanic Black American men and women than any other ethnic group. Fifty-four percent of non-Hispanic Black Americans have hypertension, compared with 46 percent of non-Hispanic white Americans, 39 percent of Asian Americans, and 36 percent of Hispanic Americans. Black Americans also tend to develop hypertension earlier in life and experience more severe blood pressure elevation. Black American and Mexican American children are more likely to have high blood pressure than white children.

It is not known for sure why high blood pressure is more common in this group, but researchers theorize it may be partly due to higher rates of obesity and diabetes among Black Americans and a gene that makes Black Americans more sensitive to salt. In people who have this gene, even just one-half teaspoon of salt can elevate blood pressure by 5 mmHg.

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