Answer this simple question- Do you have high blood pressure?
If yes, you are one of the lucky few who know that they have the condition hence can take efforts to control it but if you are saying no, are you certain about it? Have you taken a Blood Pressure screening to know it?
The reason why we are stressing on the question is that most people, about one third of them, do not know that they have high blood pressure until they go to see the doctor for some other reason.
Hypertension living upto its ‘Silent’ fame
Madhav Sharma is one of them, he says, “About five years back, I was working for about 15 hours in a day and used to get these frequent headaches. I also suffered for asthma so I visited the doctor thinking that it was somewhat related to asthma, it was when the doctor checked my blood pressure, that I came to know that I had hypertension which caused the headaches.”
There are no clear symptoms of high blood pressure, Dr. Sunita Manglik, General Physician, says, “Most of the time, Blood Pressure does not show symptoms, it is a silent disease which doesn’t show symptoms till it is too late.”
What is high blood pressure or hypertension?
Blood pressure is the measure of the pressure of blood on the walls of the blood vessels as the heart expands and contracts. When the pressure on the walls remains high for a long time, the condition is called as high blood pressure or hypertension. Hypertension can lead to various health complications if not controlled in time.
How do you know you have High blood pressure?
Most of the times high blood pressure shows no symptoms, however you can keep an eye to these symptoms which may point to Hypertension:
- Headaches
- Nosebleeds
- Dizziness
- Blurred vision
- Nausea
- Low libido
- Noise in the ears
- Trembling
- Sleepiness
- Vision loss
- Chest pain
- Irregular heart beat
These symptoms are not always present in all the cases and can be caused due to various other ailments too, hence the best way to know if you are hypertensive is through a blood pressure test.
Dr. Manglik says, “Symptoms of blood pressure are seen only too late, sometimes as heart attack or vision loss or kidney disease and so on. Most of the people come to know about their blood pressure when they have visited their doctor for some other illness and their doctor checks their B.P.”
So, who should take the test? - Everyone
Dr. Manglik replies, “Anyone who has family history of high blood pressure, is overweight, smokes, is above the age of 30 and lives a sedentary lifestyle should take the blood pressure test. But today due to unhealthy lifestyle, everybody should take the test as it is a simple test which doesn’t even cost much.”
Generally, everyone from their twenties should get their blood pressure checked, especially today’s young working population. Young Indians especially in the cities, living a stressful life with erratic working hours, irregular sleeping patterns, consuming junk food and leading an inactive lifestyle are prone to hypertension.
So, what are your numbers?
We advise you to visit your doctor and take a blood pressure test now! The blood pressure test is a very simple and inexpensive test and you will know your blood pressure within a span of minutes. Your blood pressure consists of two numbers, systolic blood pressure - pressure in the blood vessels when the heart is pumping and diastolic blood pressure - pressure in the blood vessel when the heart relaxes. For a normal person the blood pressure reading should be less than 120/80 with 120 as systolic reading and 80 as diastolic reading.
For you to be termed as having hypertension, your blood pressure readings should be above 140/90 on more than three or more separate occasions, checked at least weeks apart.
Pre-Hypertension? Time to make changes!
Today, due to increasing number of people with hypertension and cases of heart attack and stroke, a new term called as ‘Pre-hypertension’ is coined which is a condition prior to a full blown hypertension. Studies have shown that, starting as low as 115/75, the risk of a heart attack and stroke doubles for every 20-point jump in systolic blood pressure or every 10-point rise in diastolic blood pressure.
It is believed that almost half of Americans over the age of 19 have hypertension or pre-hypertension, the numbers in India cannot be better due to their unhealthy lifestyle that we are aping. But the good news is those with pre hypertension have better chances of controlling their blood pressure with lifestyle changes. So if you are in the pre-hypertensive stage, make a few changes in your lifestyle and you won’t suffer from any complications.
Make no mistake, Hypertension kills!
Today it is seen that most people who have hypertension are of the opinion that it is a part and parcel of aging, and is but a byproduct of our lifestyle. Most of them believe that blood pressure medication can take care of it. However hypertension should be taken more seriously feels Dr. Manglik, “People need to be educated; it is not a harmless disease just because it does not show any symptom. By the time high blood pressure will show its symptoms it will have already affected the organs, in this case- kidney, eyes and heart.”
Consistent high pressure on the walls of the blood vessels causes damage to eyes, heart, brain and kidney. Hypertension is one of the common causes of strokes and heart attacks and leads to millions of deaths each year.
