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High blood pressure
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
Hiya guys. I've not been around much lately due to increased workload and having moved house recently.
In part of the house move, I have taken up life insurance. A medical check takes place before the insurance is secured. Hey presto, everything was OK apart from my blood pressure which read 173 / 78. I think that the normal should be 130 / 80.
First of all, I have searched for causes on Thesite.org but related articles are all pretty much pointing to narcotics. I have never taken illegal drugs in my life. I drink coffee every day which includes instant coffee and proper ground coffee. Alcoholic drinks clocks up 14-21 units per week. Breakfast is muesli with juice. Lunch is always cheese sandwiches involving 1 tomato and 3 slices of bread. Dinner is e.g. pasta/scrambled eggs/kippers+potatos/tinned soup/ploughmans. I'll microwave 1 easy meal or pizza every week. I never snack on sweets or crisps but I'm often tempted (and do have) two pieces of bread with jam late evening. I don't see anything out of the ordinary here though.
Exercise: I walk to and from work (3 miles per working day), although my job is entirely sedentary. At home, I read, play a music instrument or play on the computer which again is sedentary. Having said that, most people do that anyway? Weekends often involve clubbing and I go out to a pub meal on Thursday nights.
Are there any suggestion causes for this? Thanks.
In part of the house move, I have taken up life insurance. A medical check takes place before the insurance is secured. Hey presto, everything was OK apart from my blood pressure which read 173 / 78. I think that the normal should be 130 / 80.
First of all, I have searched for causes on Thesite.org but related articles are all pretty much pointing to narcotics. I have never taken illegal drugs in my life. I drink coffee every day which includes instant coffee and proper ground coffee. Alcoholic drinks clocks up 14-21 units per week. Breakfast is muesli with juice. Lunch is always cheese sandwiches involving 1 tomato and 3 slices of bread. Dinner is e.g. pasta/scrambled eggs/kippers+potatos/tinned soup/ploughmans. I'll microwave 1 easy meal or pizza every week. I never snack on sweets or crisps but I'm often tempted (and do have) two pieces of bread with jam late evening. I don't see anything out of the ordinary here though.
Exercise: I walk to and from work (3 miles per working day), although my job is entirely sedentary. At home, I read, play a music instrument or play on the computer which again is sedentary. Having said that, most people do that anyway? Weekends often involve clubbing and I go out to a pub meal on Thursday nights.
Are there any suggestion causes for this? Thanks.
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Comments
One of the things the practise nurse at your GPs surgery does is monitor people with high blood pressure, and look at lifestyle with them to try and get it down. You don't say if you're overweight, that won't help if you are.
How long does it take you to walk to work? If you're going to call it real exercise you should be aiming for under an hour for those 3 miles.
I have recently brought a stepper and an abdominal trainer. The stepper mimics a skiing machine but without the handles. The abmominal trainer is pretty much a standard - you see it in a lot of homes. It's a sit-up device. Would you say that 30 minutes on these two machines combined would prove a good addition?
Coffee will be my big problem though. It's a good job I mentioned it. I can make do with alcohol 1-2 times a week, but coffee is definitely a compulsive addiction for me.
P.S. Water intake is the full 8 glasses a day.
My bp gets slightly high due to stress aas usage, speak to your Dr about it, he may put you on meds if he thinks its a major problem, or if you dont fancy meds seek into herbal remedies like hawthorn berry and celery seed extracts.
Salt - I'll need to check this. I did use Lo Salt a few years back, so I'll switch back to that. Salt intake should be 5g/day or half for sodium levels I think. Is that correct? For bread, I have used Warburton's Seaded Batch and the Robert's Bakery white bread. I just checked their figures and was amazed to find that the calorie and salt count was less on the white bread. Any recommendations on a low-salt bread? What would be an ideal butter/spread in this field?
Stress - I work on a helpdesk taking phonecalls from students who have problems on their computers. The department used to be just myself and my boss. Now, we are 5 people and the workload is more pressured for all 5 of us. Writing up a phonecall only to receive another call immediately is certainly not a nice feeling. Tech support is stressful, but I'm sure that there are many roles that are worse, including teaching!!
Thanks everyone. You have been great help!
I'm getting another reading from the nurse next Monday, so I'll remember to update the thread then.
unfortunately there isnt much i can do to help this apart from diet and exercise, still doesnt make much difference tho.
the doctor said they can give me pills to help lower it, but if i started on them i'd be on them for the rest of my life, so they decided to monitor it instead, thank god. couldnt be assed with tablets.
go see the doctor and see what they suggest.
The levels may be slightly lower in the white bread but overall the brown i better for you.
I just saw your note about semi-skimmed milk. I'm not keen on milky or creamy taste, so I have always taken milk as semi-skimmed.
Do you have any recommendations for bread and butter/spread that I can take?
Hmmmmmm. "High blood pressure" is simply a description of a physiological event and chronic hypertension will have an underlying pathology.
HAving said that, did you only have one reading of your blood pressure? Were you resting? Not stressed (Life insurance medical seems like a good way to relax the patient)?
For an adequate measure of your blood pressure, a doctor will probably send you away with a portable machine to periodically measure your pressure over the duration of a day and then give you an average reading.
High blood pressure is a problem which is becoming a global problem. Now once you have had it you are required to take lifelong medications. So it is better that you do activities that can help you in curbing the problem. Keeping a watch of your diet is mandatory and with it you should also go for the regular workouts. At present the Yoga asanas are doing miracles in controlling the blood pressure, which has been proved. So see if this helps you.
Bear in mind that your blood pressure can rise in stressful circumstances. If you were worried about what your reading would be today, that could have pushed it up, whereas if you had readings over a prolonged period of time, you could find that the measures you're taking are actually helping
Scary-Monster: I totally agree what you've said on salt on page 1 here! I have cut table salt completely and substituted cooking salt with (more) garlic when making pasta meals. Then two nights ago, I had two boiled eggs for supper, natually with table salt. Dear god, did it taste salty or what?! So yes, cutting salt is really easy to get used to after you've done it for a couple of weeks.
Blood test and pressure test in 3 weeks time.
P.S. The pills I'm on is called Ramiphil.