| Home > Books
> Lifestyle > Health
> High Blood Pressure |
|
|
|
High Blood Pressure - A Major Health Problem Part 1 |
| As a major world health problem, high blood pressure deteriorates the
healthy life of many. Most people believe the illness only effects our
senior citizens, but that far from the truth. Many middle-aged men and
women have high blood pressure problems. |
It is also referred to as the silent killer, because many people don't
even know that they have this problem until it's to late. In the
United States one of the leading causes of heart attacks and strokes
is high blood pressure. Many times in the early states the elevated
pressure is so slight that an individual will experience or detect
no symptoms. Feeling healthy, he or she will be unaware of the
problem at hand.
High blood pressure comes in basically two forms, primary
hypertension and secondary hypertension. The most common is primary
hypertension. It is thought that as much as 95% of high blood
pressure is the result of primary hypertension. There are many
factors that contribute to hypertension but that's will be another
article. |
|
|
There are many warning signs contributed to high blood pressure. One of
this signs is chronic headache. The problem is many people will consider
the headaches as mere allergy problems, and simple dismiss them. And this
might be true, but if they occur several days is a row, a person should go
to their doctor as soon as possible. It would be a big mistake to ignore
it, hoping that the headaches would simply go away.
Dizziness is another sign of high blood pressure. Many people believe this
is a eye problem. They go to their eye doctor to with this problem. But
the doctor does not give blood pressure test, so the symptom is not
correctly identified. You should always make an appointment with you
medical doctor if you starting to feel dizzy on more than just one
occasion.
The last warning sign I will mention is shortness of breath. Usually at
this point the blood pressure has reached a high enough level to be
dangerous. Fortunately a person is alarmed by this and goes to his doctor.
It is important to state, you should go to your doctor immediately if you
are finding yourself with shortest of breath when it is not caused by
above normal physical activity.
Symptoms are indicators that the body is telling you it is not healthy. It
is important to pay attention to these indicators and respond to them as
quickly as possible. It is important that you go to your doctor to find
out the cause as soon as possible. Do not linger, hoping that it will get
better, because it is a very good chance it won't.
When going to the doctor, usually one of the first things they will do is
check your blood pressure with an instrument with a name hard to spell and
even harder to pronounce, "sphygmomanometer". The instrument
measures your blood pressure in millimeters of mercury.
Taking a blood pressure is fairly simple and has little discomfort. A
strap or cuff is wrapped around your upper arm and your arm is extended
beside your body at heart level. A hand air pump inflates the cuff until
it blocks the flow of main arm artery. The pressure (air) is gradually
released when a pulse is first heard is the systolic pressure (large
number) and at the point the pressure finally stops pulsating is the
diastolic pressure (the smaller number.
The pre hypertension range is from 120/80 to 139/89. Because of this
published range, high blood pressure is defined by most insurance
companies is any value above 140/90. It is important as you get older or
have a high blood pressure problem is to monitor your range closely.
Part 2 of this article explains the ways that you can reduce your high
blood pressure without using drugs. |
|
|
| Home > Books
> Lifestyle > Health
> High Blood Pressure |
|