What constitutes high blood pressure?
As the name implies, your blood pressure is the amount of pressure your blood exerts on your arterial walls. To determine this, doctors take a blood pressure reading, which measures two things:
- Systolic blood pressure, the pressure in your arteries when your heart beats
- Diastolic blood pressure, the pressure in your arteries in between heart beats
Before last year, a measurement of 140/90 was considered to be hypertensive. But the medical world revised these numbers to include anyone with a reading of 130/80 and higher, which accounts for the large number of people who have high blood pressure. This move was made to underscore the seriousness of the condition and to allow you ample time to take action to reverse the numbers, getting them to within a normal range of about 120/80, or less.
Why is high blood pressure dangerous?
It’s hard to underestimate how serious high blood pressure is, which can lead to:
- Heart attack
- Stroke
- Aneurysm
- Heart disease
- Kidney disease
- Dementia
Making matters worse, high blood pressure is often referred to as the “silent killer,” because there are usually no symptoms of the condition until a serious complication has already developed. This is why frequent testing is so important, which the doctors at Rochester Primary Care routinely perform.
How is high blood pressure diagnosed and treated?
One of the first things the team at Rochester Primary Care does when you come in is to check your blood pressure. This simple and painless test gives them an immediate reading of your blood pressure. If you routinely test high, the doctors come up with a treatment plan tailored to your needs and lifestyle, which typically includes:
- Prescription medications, including diuretics
- DASH diet (dietary approaches to stop hypertension)
- Reduced sodium (salt) intake
- Weight loss
- Increased exercise
- Stress management with relaxation techniques
- Smoking cessation and reduced alcohol consumption
A medical approach, combined with the critical lifestyle steps you take at home, can bring down your blood pressure numbers, getting you into safer territory.
If you’d like to tackle your high blood pressure, call Rochester Primary Care or use the online booking tool to set up a consultation.
