Do You Have High Blood Pressure?

You can have high blood pressure (hypertension) for years without a single symptom. Uncontrolled high blood pressure increases your risk of serious health problems, including heart attack and stroke.

Blood pressure is determined by the amount of blood your heart pumps and the amount of resistance to blood flow in your arteries. The more blood your heart pumps and the narrower your arteries, the higher your blood pressure.

High blood pressure typically develops over many years, and it affects nearly everyone eventually. Fortunately, high blood pressure can be easily detected. And once you know you have high blood pressure, you can work with your doctor to control it.

I am lucky or I take good care of myself (not sure which). My blood pressure runs about 120 over 70 consistently. My wife has been struggling with high blood pressure for the past 5 years or so. She was not overweight 5 years ago when the doctor put her on a medicine (diovan) and she gained 20 pounds in 2 months. This does not sit well with her because now she is overweight with high blood pressure. So she switched pills (lisinopril) and the new ones made her cough incessantly. Another unwanted side effect. I suggested she get off the pills all together and we get her blood pressure down with diet and exercise. Well we never got it down but it got no worse and we are both eating much better.

We have a good friend, male, age 30 with chronic high blood pressure. He has also tried the gamut of pills and had many of the same side effects. He decided to go strict vegetarian and was able to get his pressure in check. He has had high blood pressure for so long that he can tell you when it is rising and begin doing breathing and meditation techniques to bring it down. He settled on a low dosage of the pill that has the least side effects for him and he is in great shape and a good eater by any standard.

I have never worried about high blood pressure so I did not even know what it was. Yeah! The Internet!! Here is a great page with a very layman’s definition of blood pressure and why we should be concerned about it. Blood Pressure Page

I want feed back folks. Tell me what works specifically with diet and exercise and meditation to help lower blood pressure. I want a holistic approach to high blood pressure. Again, pills might be nice but, alas, those dreaded side effects.
Here is a page with all the medicines, how they work and side effects.