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Doctor says I have high blood pressure
Michael H
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I just got back from my physical and the doctor said my blood pressure is high enough to be a concern. (136/98)
I'm 28, don't smoke, drink infrequently, 6'0" 200lbs, and according to him am otherwise pretty healthy. I have no other health conditions, no medication. He said that I should ask my mom and dad about our family history with blood pressure (I honestly have no idea) as the number is high enough at my age as to make him suspicious.
Long story short I'm going back in a month after taking my own readings 3x a week to see if the number is right. They have a machine I can use at work. I'm also supposed do drink an ass-ton of water, get 30 min of exercise 5x a week, and cut the hell out of my sodium.
I'm all for those things, I understand I could be healthier. But two things scare me: 1) If it is an accurate reading after a month my blood pressure stays that high, I could be on BP medication for life. That's not cool. 2) He said that if it's a genetic thing, I could be a champion triathlon athlete and still have high blood pressure.
If anyone else has had a similar experience and has any advice, feel free to share it. I don't relish the thought of any medication for any reason.![:\](https://forums.penny-arcade.com/resources/emoji/confused.png ":\")
I'm 28, don't smoke, drink infrequently, 6'0" 200lbs, and according to him am otherwise pretty healthy. I have no other health conditions, no medication. He said that I should ask my mom and dad about our family history with blood pressure (I honestly have no idea) as the number is high enough at my age as to make him suspicious.
Long story short I'm going back in a month after taking my own readings 3x a week to see if the number is right. They have a machine I can use at work. I'm also supposed do drink an ass-ton of water, get 30 min of exercise 5x a week, and cut the hell out of my sodium.
I'm all for those things, I understand I could be healthier. But two things scare me: 1) If it is an accurate reading after a month my blood pressure stays that high, I could be on BP medication for life. That's not cool. 2) He said that if it's a genetic thing, I could be a champion triathlon athlete and still have high blood pressure.
If anyone else has had a similar experience and has any advice, feel free to share it. I don't relish the thought of any medication for any reason.
Michael H on
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However, there's no real evidence that blood pressure medication has any effect on the sodium aspect of a diet -- as in, people with high blood pressure that are on medication will still have the same responses to sodium. My friend has said that in recent studies people who change ONLY sodium intake change their blood pressure by about 2-3 points overall, which is essentially insignificant. In other words, your doctor is wrong regarding sodium and should be reading more current literature related to high blood pressure.
Personally I think the salt association is simply that fat people eat salty foods. It's similar to the old studies that associated alcohol with diseases common to smoking -- because people did both together. Now that there's a large enough sample of drinkers who don't smoke, alcohol is becoming slowly disassociated with many of the smoking-related negatives that it once had.
OK, enough of my RN friend's bit about sodium. For my own input, I had blood pressure around 135 and was 5'10" and 180. My doctor said "well you do some exercise but you probably should eat less salt." I did and it didn't affect a damn thing. Instead, I lost 20 lbs and did actual regular exercise -- not just a little bit every other day. I do about 45-60 minutes of running or biking in the morning now, eat healthier (to keep the weight off), and now that I'm at 160lbs my blood pressure (when tested by my RN friend) was 113. I always forget the second number, btw.
In the mean time, I enjoy salty foods and wine. But you probably need to lose some weight and do more exercise. 135 is "should be concerned" but is not deadly or anything. My dad's up near 200 (and fat) and on medication for it.
I think... don't stress out too much?
It'll be what it'll be. Just try and be healthy and what'll happen'll happen.
EggyToast - That's interesting info about the salt. I'll probably still cut back just 'cause I usually eat quite a bit anyway, and too much of anything should probably be avoided.
Robots Will Be Our Superiors (Blog)
http://michaelhermes.com
I exercise about 4-6 days a week, but I eat whatever I want. There is no way I'm going to take blood pressure medication.
If I were you, I wouldn't be too concerned. A number of factors can affect blood pressure readings, including being in a doctor's office and the person taking the reading.
And when I measure it at home, it's in the 120/70 - 130/80 range.
Don't get too excited by one single reading at a doctors office.
Good to know someone's in the same boat as I. For me it's the dentist. I can't stand them. The last time I was there they had me do a bunch of things like lie back and make sure my legs weren't crossed and basically try to get me to relax, and it came down quite a bit in a few minutes.
As for taking meds everyday, yeah, its a bit of a hassle. Mine are 10 bucks a month, or, if I wasn't lazy, I could send in and get a 3 month supply for the same price. Basically, if it does come down to medication, make sure to take it. I'm sure they have told you all the risks and complications that come with it, and lets just say it isn't called "the silent killer" for a reason. Managing it is a pain in the butt, but much better than ignoring it like my dad did for the longest time (fond memories as a child of several hospital visits).
Oh, and they will probably make you do a stress test, which is a total bitch. Hated that treadmill.
"White coat syndrome" is definitely a possibility, but this is something to be proactive about.
My weight yo-yo'd through my twenties and when I was 31 I discovered I had ridiculously high blood pressure (200/120 at it's worst). That was high enough to merit going on medication immediately, unlike yourself. It was also the final trigger to get me to stop living like a student and eat properly. Low sodium, no caffeine, exercise (had to ease into the heavy lifting once my BP was stable).
Right now I'm at ideal BP with medication and it looks like I could be off meds in a year or so once I'm at the weight I want to be.
Sorry, this is nonsense. It's not the only factor, but dismissing the importance of low-sodium to blood pressure based on your personal experience and some nurse is silly.
This is a simple layman's explanation. The actual mechanisms are FAR more complex than that. Independent of this, though, there are studies (pretty strong studies, I should note, not small cohort studies) that show that high sodium intake exerts cardiac effects independent of hemodynamic load.
What your RN friend may be referring to is the fact that only a small portion of hypertensive patients have what is known as sodium-sensitive hypertension. Hypertension is a multifactoral disease, and a few patients may be able to reduce their hypertension from sodium restriction alone. The main thing is reducing the risk of cardiac disease, which is the big concern. The blood pressure alone won't kill you (unless it is high enough to cause other problems, of which you should be experiencing RIGHT NOW at rest if you had this unlikely situation)... it is a symptom of other potential problems.
TL;DR - Don't reduce your sodium intake just to reduce your blood pressure. Reduce your sodium intake to reduce the risk of cardiac disease overall.
I think you'll find that your BP will be more normal when you take it yourself. The reason your doctor is concerned about the diastolic value (the lower number) is that most of the blood flow to the heart occurs during diastole. A high diastolic pressure can cause damage to the arteries that supply the heart and if you've got high cholesterol you'll get some plaque formation and that's where things go downhill.
You do not mention if you will undergo 24 hours Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, this is done with a device attached to your arm and waist, and it is a must in order to find out if your blood pressure is high even when you are sleeping.
There are other tests that are performed, but I will not go into details. Now, if you are in fact found to have Hypertension, even after you reduce your body wait, sodium and start jogging, it is adviseable that you listen to your doctor.
DASH Diet is good.
Which was pretty enlightening: when I asked her if high blood pressure ran in my family she laughed. I guess she thought that I knew she was on blood pressure meds for the last 15 years (I had no idea), and I guess cardiac problems run in my mom's side. (My maternal grandma had heart disease.) She said that she gets white coat syndrome but also has high blood pressure.
Which highlights an important point: Get to know your family's history!
Better diet and exercise starts tomorrow, as well as a gallon of water/day or as close as I can get to it. I also found a simple app for my phone that lets me enter my blood pressure when I measure it and then export the results. I'll be checking it at work several times over the next week.
Robots Will Be Our Superiors (Blog)
http://michaelhermes.com
I routinely get blood pressure results in the 130s over 90s. Often I go over 140... my mum who is 65 and superfit goes on and off BP meds.
If its genetic, there's not much you can do about it. Having said that, if you're genetically predisposed towards higher blood pressure but remain healthy, the odds of it actually causing you harm over the longterm is not particularly high.
Neither of us have ever had any issues with our hearts - in fact my mum recently had an angiogram and was told she had the healthiest heart for a 65 year old the surgeon had ever seen.
These are taken after I've gotten to work but before I've actually done anything or had coffee, ~6:15 AM.
Robots Will Be Our Superiors (Blog)
http://michaelhermes.com
It could be as simple as sodium sensitivity, or, it could be as complex as someone who was a small baby and drinks a lot of booze and doesn't get enough bananas. Or genetic. Salt is usually hardly the only reason it's higher, it's more likely he was stressed because hey, a doctor.
Don't you ever hear those commercials? "Done everything you can to lower your blood pressure and it's still high?" Yeah it's pretty common in the world of hypertension, especially in younger people. The ones who have sodium issues are generally the obese patients struggling with diabetes.
Those are better, still a little on the high side for someone your age. Try to keep taking the readings for a week or so at the same time. There's a lot of variance in BP readings.
Robots Will Be Our Superiors (Blog)
http://michaelhermes.com
You're sitting in the waiting room, the nurse calls your name and you jump up from your seat and your BP drops at first but then rises to compensate for the drop. You go to the room and the nurse has you sit down and immediately straps on a cuff and takes your BP. You are wearing long sleeves and rather than have you take off your shirt they just take it over top of your clothes. The nurse tells you your BP is 140/90. The doctor comes in and looks at your chart and informs you that you have hypertension. You freak out.
Here's what should happen:
The nurse calls you, you jump up and follow her to the office and sit down. The nurse says, "we're going to wait a few minutes to let you get settled." The nurse tells you to take off your long sleeve shirt :winky: and then takes your BP with the cuff on bare skin. Your arm is propped on a table level with your chest. The nurse tells you your BP is 120/80. The doctor comes in, looks at your chart and you two high-five. You then go about your day skipping and whistling a sea shanty.
I wouldn't rule out that they could be completely wrong. I wouldn't panic until you've had it done a few times...
I have a phobia of needles, which translate into stress whenever I visit a doctor's office. Consequently, my heart is always racing when I have my blood pressure taken, and my BP always shows up high. When I have my blood pressure taken outside of a doctor's office, it always comes back lower than normal.
That's not an excuse not to try to reduce the fat and sodium in your diet and to increase the amount you exercise, mind.
i'm a lady; 5'7" and around 174lbs for the record (muscle mass, also working on losing weight).
Robots Will Be Our Superiors (Blog)
http://michaelhermes.com
Research, however, has taught me that having high numbers isn't necessarily a concern - it's the difference between systolic and diastolic that's dangerous. That is, having a blood pressure of 130/60 is more dangerous than 140/100 because the difference between the two is larger is the former.
I would think that 136/98 is something to watch, but not something to worry too much about.
The Law of the Universe is that each and every action we take brings us closer to our Death. So, recognizing the futility of worrying about it, I just take my meds, smoke cigarettes, and drink beer.