hypertension

[mubde]

Hi,

I am 52 years old man. I have been diagnosed for hypertension because my BP is sometimes 150/100. I have taken several types of medicines for more than 10 years and regularly. I started with Tenormin(altenol) and then Concor another beta blocker then I am now under Diovan.

I have always noticed that no matter what medicine I take my BP is most of the time 110/80 and only when I feel that Aderanline is flowing in my blood that the BP is high and then it drops to normal after several checks using my BP Electronic tester.

I really think that I do not have hypertension and I am taking medicine for no reason. What do you think?

I have never been able to get a good answer from any doctor that treated me.

Regards

[LukeL]

You may want to buy a home bp monitor. They are pretty cheap and somewhat accurate. Or if you can't afford one go to your local drug store or department store and use the free machines they have. This way you are in a safe area and should get a good reading.

Also If you do have hypertension you can treat it with diet, exercise, not smoking or drinking and trying to avoid stress. There is also the option for betablockers which I at first hated but overtime got use to. (Now I am greatful for them)

You said your schools health center so I can assume you are in college or grad school. If this is the case your BP may be high from the stress of school and is completly normal.

I also had the same problem as you a very high systolic number 135-150 and a low diastolic number 65-80. Now my bp with the betablockers is 110/75 in a clinical setting.

[J_J]

This situation bares some disturbing similarities with my own, but no one has diagnosed me with hypertension.  I am an active 27 year old male with a BMI of ~22.5, and I do not smoke, drink or use any other drugs.  My resting pulse rate is roughly 56 BPM.  I have had my blood pressure checked in a clinical situation seven times in the last 1.5 years.  Four of the seven checks were normal range or optimal (all SBP:  3rd 125; 4th 130; 5th 120, 7th 114), but in the other three, my systolic number was in the 140s (all SBP:  1st upper 140s; 2nd 147; 6th 144).  The diastolic number is always 80 or, often, less.  Before this period, my BP was always normal.  The high numbers were recorded during rather stressful visits to my school's health center, while the others, with the exception of the 114, were recorded at different offices.  The 114 might be biased low because I finished a quick 10 minute swim 20 minutes before they put the cuff on me.

At this point, thinking about blood pressure or heart disease generates a great deal of anxiety for me.  I can feel my heart beat and my pulse rate increase when I get near sphygmometers.  The thought of being diagnosed with hypertension at only 27 makes me almost nauseous!

[LukeL]

Even if the 150/100 is from stress only that is also a problem. It is often called white coat hypertension because it only occurs in the docotors office because of fear and stress. Docotors often would write this off as a harmless condition.

But it has recently become known to be a potenitally dangerous condition. Due to the fact that your body is overreacting to stress and your heart rate and BP shoot up to when it shouldn't and over time this can lead to dammage.

I am 20 years old and am on betablockers because of stress and can tell you that it has dropped my heart rate down from 110 resting to 70-80 resing and my BP down to 110/70. You can also do some research and discover that beta blockers are some of the safest drugs on the market and have very little adverse sid effects especially if you have been on them for 10 years without problems.

It is much better to pop one pill a day then to have heart disease in your late 50s to early 60s.

As Always check with your doctor if you have concerns.

[Richard_W]

I think it is too high and I would get the medical help you need to get it down where it belongs.  I would shoot for 110/70.  High blood pressure is a major problem for damaging the heart muscle.  It just can't be ignored.

[Gaspipe]

This is a good question.  I'am in a similar boat. The answer seems to be if you were to monitor your BP  through out your day it probably would run high more often than you might think. So the diagnosis of essential hypertension is usually based upon a number of readings.If yours is only elevated at rare times maybe you don't have it.  But high BP is always a bad thing and you may find as you age it would stay elevated more often than not if you were not medicated. Just remember that with meds it is risks vs. benefits and none of us like to resigh ourselves we may need meds but the alternatives are not always good. Yours truly Gaspipe

[Cleveland Clinic]

mubde,

thanks for the post.

150/100 is hypertension.  If your blood pressure were to remain in that range off medicines and with attempts through diet, weight loss, exercise and smoking cessation I would treat it. Generally, we try to record 2 separate measurements to ensure the reliabilty of the recordings and encourage ambulatory measurments. You should remember lowering your blood pressure to the levels you are now recording with medications can have significant impact on your future event rates of death, MI and stroke.

good luck