Any time you go to a doctor’s office, no matter the specialty, the odds are good that someone will take your blood pressure reading before anything else.
There’s a very good reason blood pressure is a first stop in health care — it’s a big indicator of your cardiovascular health. Given that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and has been for more than a century, you can see why assessing this important risk factor is so important.
Since February is American Heart Month in the US, our experienced primary care team at CareOne Internal Medicine and Primary Care thought it would be a good idea to review blood pressure numbers and what they indicate about your health.
When we measure your blood pressure, we’re measuring the pressure on the walls of your arteries during a heartbeat (systolic) and between heartbeats (diastolic), which is what gives us the two numbers. And here’s how these numbers break out:
In the US, nearly half of adults have high blood pressure, meaning any reading over 130/80.
When the pressure of the blood against the walls of your blood vessels is higher than it should be, it can damage those blood vessels over time. For example, high blood pressure can shred the smooth linings of your arteries, making them more prone to trapping plaques that can build up and narrow the arteries, a condition known as atherosclerosis.
Hypertension can also rob your blood vessels of their elasticity, and when blood vessels become stiff, they can’t circulate blood as well.
Lastly, if your arteries narrow as a result of high blood pressure, it can place added stress on your heart, which has to work harder to push blood through narrowed vessels.
Now we’re going to get into some of the serious complications that can develop on the heels of high blood pressure, including the heart disease already mentioned, as well as other serious health conditions.
The list of possible complications includes:
As you can see, it’s no exaggeration to say that high blood pressure can have an impact from head to toe.
There’s a silver lining in all of the information we’re presenting here — you can bring your blood pressure down and reverse the dangerous course of your health. If you have hypertension, there are some effective steps you can take to lower your blood pressure, such as:
We understand that some of these changes can be daunting and require no small amount of effort, but we’re here to help. We can devise a personalized heart health plan to help you minimize one of the biggest threats to your health — high blood pressure — and set the stage for a healthier future.
To get that ball rolling, schedule an appointment at one of our CareOne Internal Medicine and Primary Care convenient locations in Houston or Katy, Texas. We also offer telehealth appointments.
