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Heart Disease (Expert Forum)
extreme high blood pressure
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Doctor's Answer
by CCF-M.D.-RCJ, Jul 16, 2003 12:00AM
Davenport,
Thanks for the post.
It depends on what is meant by "extremely high". A BP of 200/100, for example is high, but likely needs no further therapy without resting hypertension. A BP of 300/150 needs further evaluation regardless of the resting blood pressure.
The prognostic importance of exercise-induced hypertension has been evaluated at the Cleveland Clinic in 3000 patients with suspected or known coronary disease referred for exercise testing. Patients who had exercise-induced hypertension, defined as a peak systolic blood pressure 210 mmHg in men and 190 mmHg were less likely to have perfusion abnormalities on a thallium scan or to have extensive abnormalities, and there was no increase in mortality at six year follow-up.
Tlak to your doctor. He/She should give you some guidance in this area.
goood luck.
Thanks for the post.
It depends on what is meant by "extremely high". A BP of 200/100, for example is high, but likely needs no further therapy without resting hypertension. A BP of 300/150 needs further evaluation regardless of the resting blood pressure.
The prognostic importance of exercise-induced hypertension has been evaluated at the Cleveland Clinic in 3000 patients with suspected or known coronary disease referred for exercise testing. Patients who had exercise-induced hypertension, defined as a peak systolic blood pressure 210 mmHg in men and 190 mmHg were less likely to have perfusion abnormalities on a thallium scan or to have extensive abnormalities, and there was no increase in mortality at six year follow-up.
Tlak to your doctor. He/She should give you some guidance in this area.
goood luck.
I am 6'6", 35 years old, no family history of heart disease, weigh 240 lbs.
I am still concerned about this high BP.
I used to think my BP was "normal" and I have come to believe it is the root cause of my afib, now controlled by betapace. I will be 60 in December. My last stress echo was entirely normal and the doctor said I did better than the 18 year old previously tested. But I still have to keep an eye on the BP and I also need to drop some weight.
Thank you for your comments Richard.
I am not quite sure if I can ever get my blood pressure down to 110/70. I would think that is actually too low for my age, gender and body type. I am not overweight by any means, but do have a "larger" frame.
I have played basketball 2 - 3 per week for the past ten years but have been laying off of it lately do to constantly being lightheaded. I can not seem to get rid of this "medicine head" type feeling, occasional shortness of breath and constant dull ache/pressure in upper left chest area. I have recently had echocardiograms, blood work, and a CT chest scan (with contrast). I have also been to the ER a couple of times over the past year with my "symptoms". Everything has always turned out negative! My doctor tends to blame it on anxiety, but I really don't agree with him.
When you are having a-fib do you actually see your left pectoral muscle "twitching"? I get this from time to time, but my heart rate does not seem to increase. It feels more like the pectoral muscle, but I am not sure and my concern tends to cause my heart to pound slightly louder/harder (not more rapidly). The "twitching" will never last longer than 1 minute and is not constant. It will twithc a few times and then stop and then twitch again. Not really sure how to explain that.
Do you recall the highest blood pressure reading during your stress test?
Thanks again for your comments.
~Robert
The twitching sounds to me like it might be a situation where you are overworking the muscle. Do you lift heavy weights? I don't want to alarm you but muscle twitching is sometimes associated with Lou Gehrig's Disease. I would seriously doubt that is your problem but I would want to check and see if there is a reason. Perhaps you are deficient in some mineral or vitamin.
I would recommend that you invest in a good quality blood pressure machine. I would recommend the OMRON wrist model as it is so easy to use and then keep regular readings at different times of the day. I would do everything possible to get it as low as possible and I believe that 110/70 is the ideal target to shoot for. 120/80 (the old standard) is being outdated as the beginning of hypertension.
Speaking as someone whose spouse suffered a very serious problem due to high blood pressure I will never be ignorant about this problem again. I used to think I was safe but no longer. I am on meds and exercise regularly but I will never be totally out of the words especially at my age.
Hope this helps somewhat.