Healthy Life Lines: Heart Month Hypertension Healers

Make less stress, tolerate even less.

Learn relaxation techniques.

Meditate daily.

Eat heart healthy food.

Exercise at least fifteen minutes or more a day in your best way.

Pursue enjoyable hobbies that you like.

Sleep soundly at least eight hours per twenty-four.

Let love keep you healthy.

Smile a lot.

Pray often.

Own a blood pressure device and /or an application on a phone.

Check your blood pressure at home. 

Give a blood pressure monitor as a gift.

Use love and positive kindness as daily medicine.

Best health!

MY PATIENT HANDBOOK: hypertension 

High Blood Pressure Accuracy

If your blood pressure is higher than 120/80 repeatedly, you have high blood pressure also known as hypertension. Three consecutive visits to the doctor's office with high readings can be all it takes to be diagnosed with high blood pressure. It is called the silent killer because there are often no symptoms until a heart attack or stroke occurs. 

Even when your blood pressure is normal at home, it is the readings at your doctor's office that determine the diagnosis and treatment.  Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) is changing the way to accurate diagnosis.  More doctors are becoming aware of this and ordering it to check for twenty-four hours. In addition, checks by patients with blood pressure devices are being recommended.  This allows for checks in everyday life situations versus the few high anxiety visits to the doctor.

ABPM can help with treatment as well.  You can see what makes it go up and avoid these things.  Some medication can make it go too low, and the dosage adjustment or type of medication may need adjustment.  These situations usually occur at home after doctors' office hours.

When blood pressure monitoring is done by your schedule, it may be more accurate. ABPM can be a healthy way to keep it stable for you and your family. Best health!  

MY PATIENT HANDBOOK: Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring

MY PATIENT HANDBOOK: high blood pressure

Healthy Life Lines: Heart Month Hypertension Healers

 Make less stress, tolerate even less.

Learn relaxation techniques.

Meditate daily.

Eat heart healthy food.

Exercise at least fifteen minutes or more a day in your best way.

Pursue enjoyable hobbies that you like.

Sleep soundly at least eight hours per twenty-four.

Let love keep you healthy.

Smile a lot.

Pray often.

Own a blood pressure device and /or an application on a phone.

Check your blood pressure at home. 

Give a blood pressure monitor as a gift.

Use positive kindness as daily medicine.

Best health!

MY PATIENT HANDBOOK: hypertension 

Cook Your Way to Good Health!

 Cooking is good medicine.  What you cook is better medicine.  Culinary medicine can help you get better and stay healthy.  The healthy food plus cooking adds to great, healthy feelings.  This is what more doctors and healthcare providers are studying to recommend for their patients.  More residency training programs are including culinary medicine in their school curriculum.  

Food as medicine is hardly a new treatment.  Hippocrates quoted it thousands of years ago.  Research continues to show that proper nutrition with natural foods keeps low risk for disease lower, and it also keep high risk conditions from progressing and perhaps even occurring. Starting before birth is the optimal time.  Early good nutrition is important.

Make your healthy more wealthy by learning to shop for healthy food to prepare healthy meals.  This can save your money as well as your health.  Let it begin and/or continue with education (March is National Nutrition Month) and action with the intent of adding it to your healthy lifestyle.  Best health and eating!

Holiday Hypertension Healers

Make less stress, tolerate even less.

Learn relaxation techniques.

Meditate daily.

Eat heart healthy food.

Exercise at least fifteen minutes or more a day in your best way.

Pursue enjoyable hobbies that you like.

Sleep soundly at least eight hours per twenty-four.

Let love keep you healthy.

Smile a lot.

Pray often.

Own a blood pressure device and /or an application on a phone.

Check your blood pressure at home. 

Give a blood pressure monitor as a gift.

Use positive kindness as daily medicine.

Best health!

MY PATIENT HANDBOOK: hypertension 

Hypertension Healers

Make less stress, tolerate even less.

Learn relaxation techniques.

Meditate daily.

Eat heart healthy food.

Exercise at least fifteen minutes or more a day in your best way.

Pursue enjoyable hobbies that you like.

Sleep soundly at least eight hours per twenty-four.

Let love keep you healthy.

Smile a lot.

Pray often.

Own a blood pressure device and /or an application on a phone.

Check your blood pressure at home. 

Give a blood pressure monitor as a gift.

Use positive kindness as daily medicine.

Best health!

MY PATIENT HANDBOOK: hypertension 

High Blood Pressure Education Month: Hypertension Tension

Tension in the morning can be stressful. Hypertension may be contributing to this.  It may cause symptoms often associated with starting a new day and all you have to do.  This should be less stressful than many choose to make it.  Normal blood pressure at this time of day is associated with better health and less comorbidity.  

Hypertension in the morning may start as early awakening, anxiety. headache, chest discomfort, and general fatigue.  Studies have shown heart attacks are more likely to occur this time.  High blood pressure in the morning should be recognized. Often it may be associated with normal blood pressure for most of the waking hours without symptoms.  

Treatment must be specific for each person.  It is good to begin with simple common sense things like restful sleep, healthy diet, and exercise.  Meditation, yoga, and prayer are beneficial as well as easy to do upon waking up.  Reading books and watching instructional videos is an easy, inexpensive way to learn.  As these are made routine, stress reduction is also enhanced.  

Maintaining a healthy weight and BMI are important as well.  Foods specific for cardiac health like beans, greens, and grains are very beneficial. Lack of response to these may indicate a need for medication especially if blood pressure is elevated more than four hours upon and after awakening. Specific herbs and supplements may also be added.

Home blood pressure checks remain beneficial for keeping track of daily blood pressure measurements.  A record of these should be kept along with notes on present activity and treatment.  After two weeks or sooner, you will be able to see patterns, and what is working.  Continue your hypertension diary for at least three months or longer.  It will become apparent what you can do to keep a normal blood pressure without symptoms and hypertension tension.  Best health!

Holiday Hypertension Healers

 Make less stress, tolerate even less.

Learn relaxation techniques.

Meditate daily.

Eat heart healthy food.

Exercise at least fifteen minutes or more a day in your best way.

Pursue enjoyable hobbies that you like.

Sleep soundly at least eight hours per twenty-four.

Let love keep you healthy.

Smile a lot.

Pray often.

Own a blood pressure device and /or an application on a phone.

Check your blood pressure at home. 

Give a blood pressure monitor as a gift.

Use positive kindness as daily medicine.

Best health!

MY PATIENT HANDBOOK: hypertension 

Healthy Life Lines: Hypertension Healers

Make less stress, tolerate even less.

Learn relaxation techniques.

Meditate daily.

Eat heart healthy food.

Exercise at least fifteen minutes or more a day in your best way.

Pursue enjoyable hobbies that you like.

Sleep soundly at least eight hours per twenty-four.

Let love keep you healthy.

Smile a lot.

Use positive kindness as daily medicine.

Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring

Did you know that your blood pressure changes every second? This change depends on what you are doing, thinking, and feeling.  This is one reason to get your blood pressure checked more often than your routine doctor visit.  You may discover that your blood pressure is normal more often during your waking hours, and that high blood pressure occurs only certain times.  These times are often stress related.

One of the best ways to see what stressors cause your blood pressure to be high (or low) is with ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. ABPM is simple to do for patients.  Own a blood pressure monitor of your choice be it arm or wrist.  These are quite inexpensive and affordable.  Use it to check your blood pressure three times a day and at times of your choice. 

Record your daily readings for at least a month. Review your recorded readings.  This will show you patterns of your blood pressure.  Certain times of day almost every day or on some days note the times it is abnormal.  For instance, every Monday it is high, and by the weekend it is normal.  Those first days of the week especially during work hours is one of the main times it reveals itself.  Listen to it! You may also find stressful situations like pain, anxiety, and even healthy excitement can lead to high blood pressure. 

As you see the patterns, you become more mindful of what induces hypertension. Often times you may have certain symptoms that correlate.  Find ways to decrease those moments.  For example, many patients get an extra bump up in blood pressure from watching violent video content regardless of the source.  When you wait to see the doctor just getting ready may be a high blood pressure trigger.  

Share your information with your doctor.  Together you may find more normotension than hypertension.  This can be confirmed with a cardiology referral for evaluation and formal ABPM.  Check yourself and get yourself checked.  Best health!  For more information:  MY PATIENT HANDBOOK: hypertension 

Educate Your Body: Know & Learn Your Blood Pressure

Do you know your average blood pressure reading? Do you know a normal blood pressure should be? High blood pressure, also called hypertension affects 1 in 3 adults worldwide.  It affects more people than any disease in the world. Untreated hypertension leads to unhealthy feelings and symptoms.  It causes heart disease, strokes, kidney failure, blindness, poor circulation, and more. 

A normal reading is 120/80.  For more accurate measures of your blood pressure and what affects it, you should do home blood pressure monitoring. Buy a blood pressure monitor for home use. Wrist and arm monitors are available in many stores on and off line. Record your blood pressure readings daily starting with morning, midday, and night. Make a note of your activity and how you are feeling. You may notice that extreme anxiety makes it go up. The correlation to your pressure will help you manage the things that make it go up. Share your results with your doctor so medication and lifestyle changes can be made if necessary.

You may find that while your blood pressure is high in the doctor's office, it may be normal in everyday activity. Remember, the doctor's result is a one time reading every one to four or more months. With normal home results, and high results at your doctor visits you may have "white coat" hypertension. There is much controversy over whether this should be treated. Check with your primary care doctor and cardiologist.

If your blood pressure is above 120/80, you want to start a low salt, low fat diet. One of the best is the DASH diet. Integrating healthy food, exercise, weight control, and stress reduction in your treatment plan improves the way you feel.  It also controls blood pressure. For higher blood pressure readings, medication may be necessary. Be sure to take your home blood pressure results in to your doctor. This will help in deciding on the best treatment for you. Best health!

White Coat Hypertension: Is It Really High Blood Pressure?  http://bit.ly/1cGaeMj

Morning Hypertension Tension

Tension in the morning can be stressful. Hypertension may be contibuting to this.  It may cause symptoms often associated with starting a new day and all you have to do.  This should  be less stressful than many choose to make it.  Normal blood pressure at this time of day is associated with better health and less comorbidity.  

Hypertension in the morning may start as early awakening, anxiety. headache, chest discomfort, and general fatigue.  Studies have shown heart attacks are more likely to occur this time.  High blood pressure in the morning should be recognized.  Many times it is associated with normal blood presuure for most of the waking hours without symptoms.  

Treatment must be specific for each person.  It is good to begin with simple common sense things like restful sleep, healthy diet, and exercise.  Meditation, yoga, and prayer are beneficial as well as easy to do upon waking up.  Reading books and watching instructional videos is an easy, inexpensive way to learn.  As these are made routine, stress reduction is also enhanced.  

Maintaining a healthy weight and BMI are important as well.  Foods specific for cardiac health like beans, greens, and grains are very beneficial. Lack of response to these may indicate a need for medication especially if blood pressure is elevated more than four hours upon and after awakening. Specific herbs and supplements may also be added.

Home blood pressure checks remain beneficial for keeping track of daily blood pressure measurements.  A record of these should be kept along with notes on present activity and treatment.  After two weeks or sooner, you will be able to see patterns, and what is working.  Continue your hypertenson diary for at least three months or longer.  It will become apparent what you can do to keep a normal blood pressure without symptoms and hypertension tension.  Best health!

Preventive Guidelines: Do Lower Medical Numbers Make Chronic Disease More Likely?

Hypertension has new numbers that are lower for normal.  To be considered normotensive your blood pressure numbers should be lower than 120/80 versus the former normal blood pressure below 140/90.  This is the new recommendation from the cardiology experts.  This may be shown to cause less morbidity and mortality, but it may cause more people to be considered hypertensive.  If your reading on three doctor visits is over 120/80, you will be considered a patient with hypertension.

This is just one of the many medical measurements or blood tests where the WNL (within normal limits) has been lowered.  Cholesterol was at one time considered normal at 300.  The normal now is under 180.  New tests can have the same effect.  The BUN and creatinine were once the basic kidney function tests.  Now the GFR is added to these.  Your BUN and creatinine can be normal while your GFR suggests kidney disease based on your sex and your ethnicity. 

Do lower medical measurements and numbers really mean that more patients will have some chronic disease sooner? Or does it mean lower numbers mean better health with less morbidity and mortality?    Good health care will help keep you and your numbers healthier.  Keeping a lifestyle of healthy food, exercise, good sleep, and minimal stress are important health care routines for better health.  These can be integrated with complementary medicine and medication treatments if necessary. 
You should know the measurements and numbers of all your health tests.  This helps you attain better understanding and control of the unhealthy abnormal.  Lower numbers can mean less chronic disease if you know what you have and how to keep it from becoming chronic disease.  Best health!
  

Blood Pressure Home Checks

Do you know your average blood pressure reading? Do you know a normal blood pressure should be? High blood pressure, also called hypertension affects 1 in 3 adults worldwide.  It affects more people than any disease in the world. Untreated hypertension leads to unhealthy feelings and symptoms.  It causes heart disease, strokes, kidney failure, blindness, poor circulation, and more. 

A normal reading is 120/80 with borderline at 130/85 to 140/90.  For more accurate measures of your blood pressure and what affects it, you should do home blood pressure monitoring. Buy a blood pressure monitor for home use. Wrist and arm monitors are available in many stores on and off line. Record your blood pressure readings daily starting with morning, midday, and night. Make a note of your activity and how you are feeling. You may notice that extreme anxiety makes it go up. The correlation to your pressure will help you manage the things that make it go up. Share your results with your doctor so medication and lifestyle changes can be made if necessary.

You may find that while your blood pressure is high in the doctor's office, it may be normal in everyday activity. Remember, the doctor's result is a one time reading every one to four or more months. With normal home results, and high results at your doctor visits you may have "white coat" hypertension. There is much controversy over whether this should be treated. Check with your primary care doctor and cardiologist.

If your blood pressure is borderline at 130/85, you want o start a low salt, low fat diet. One of the best is the DASH diet. Integrating healthy food. exercise, weight control, and stress reduction in your treatment plan improves the way you feel and controls blood pressure. For higher blood pressure readings over 140/90, medication may be necessary. Be sure to take your home blood pressure results in to your doctor. This will help in deciding on the best treatment for you. Best health!

White Coat Hypertension: Is It Really High Blood Pressure?  http://bit.ly/1cGaeMj

Healthy Eating Precision Diet

One of the best ways to cut costs is to cut unnecessary expenses.  You invite good health when you manage your money well.  When you start with your health, you create more wealth.  One of the best ways to save money is to create wellness in your life.  One of the best ways to do both is to eat healthy, more precisely, precision eating.  Studies have shown what I have seen.  Those who consume a healthy diet, with emphasis on foods necessary for their illness, feel better and consume less medication.  Weight tends to stay stable when this occurs over the years.
Those with hypertension can decrease their medication and even stop it as their blood pressure becomes normal on their precision diet.  This would include vegetables especially carrots, beans, bananas, broccoli, garlic, and onions five times a week.  These are a few foods of the many that help lower blood pressure and decrease heart disease. The same foods also increase brain power, decrease cholesterol, improve digestion, and more.  Tumeric seasoning is an excellent way to add anti-inflammatory pain relief in arthritic neuromuscular states. Cinnamon helps with diabetes control as do beans.  Beans supplies fiber which helps keep bowel habits regular and stress free. 
When you buy these basic good foods, you are very likely to save more at the grocery checkout monthly than if you were buying three or more medications per month.  Over time you will feel better and see health improvements.  As this occurs less money will go towards medication.  The multivitamin is likely to be one of the first since a healthy selection of food will include all you need.  This healthy food will decrease most bowel distress thereby alleviating the need for gastrointestinal medication.  When blood pressure or blood sugar get in normal range, there is little need for pills.
Healthy food leads to good health.  Saving money on your health becomes greater wealth in many ways.  Study and read about what you need to make your precision food prescription for better health.  Eating healthy is eating good.  Best health!
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Stroke Awareness: Know Your Risk Factors

As more people are diagnosed with hypertension the incidence for stroke increases.  Currently about 1 in 3 persons worldwide has been diagnosed with hypertension.  This indicates that the incidence for stroke is more likely than ever before. Diabetes, high lipids, obesity, and cigarette smoking are also risk factors.

Strokes are cerebrovascular accidents, CVA for short.  Strokes may occur from uncontrolled high blood pressure, but may also occur when blood clots block the major arteries to and in the brain cutting off oxygen.  Hemorrhagic strokes may cause bleeding in the brain secondary to a ruptured artery.  The most common cause is from severe hypertension.  Other causes include aneurysm and malformations of arteries and veins in the brain.  Ischemic or thrombotic strokes happen when blood clots block the carotid arteries or arteries in the brain because of fat deposits in the vessel lining (atherosclerosis).  This cuts off or decreases blood flow to the brain.  Embolic strokes usually result from blood clots elsewhere in the body like pulmonary embolism (PE) or deep vein thrombosis (DVT).  Clots from the area involved migrate to the brain and block blood flow. 

Mini strokes called transient ischemic attacks, TIAs for short, usually last a few hours.  If longer than 24 hours, it is considered a CVA.  The impairments that occur are not permanent.  TIAs signal that one is at risk for a potential stroke with lifelong impairment. 

Signs and symptoms of strokes include:

• Dizziness, lightheadedness
• Weakness or loss of function  in arm, leg, face on one side
• Slurred speech or loss of speech
• Blindness 
• Mental  confusion or loss of consciousness
• Unsteady gait

 

The pseudonym FAST is a simple way to recognize general stroke symptoms. Face droops; Arm weakens; Speech difficulty; Time to call 911. 

Risk factor reduction is a good way to protect yourself and prevent strokes.  Keep your blood pressure in normal range.  Eat low fat dpet to keep lipids low.  Refrain from smoking.  Stay active with regular exercise.  Make less stress a priority as well. Best health!

High Blood Pressure: How Loud It Can Be

High blood pressure (HBP) is louder than you may think.  Often called the “silent killer”, hypertension has symptoms to let you know it is present.  Symptoms may include headache, dizziness, fatigue, weakness, blurred vision, seizures, unexplained anxiety, and more.  Though nonspecific these signs and symptoms do correlate with high blood pressure. If you have a family history of HBP and heart problems, it is very likely the symptoms will be present. Untreated hypertension may lead to more serious conditions like heart attacks and strokes.

When you experience symptoms suggestive of hypertension, it is important to get it checked.  This should be done by a health care professional, but can be done at home, also.  Consistent readings above 140/90 call for assessment and treatment.  A complete physical exam, complete blood tests, and EKG should be done to check for overall good health and findings that are seen with hypertension. 

On physical exam the eye exam may reveal retinopathy and artery narrowing.  This is associated with decreased vision and can proceed to blindness.  Bruits over the carotid arteries in the neck and over the abdomen area suggest vascular disease that can block the arteries off.  This can lead to strokes, chronic kidney disease, peripheral vascular disease (poor circulation in legs), sexual dysfunction and more.  Heart findings and EKG changes can show signs of heart disease that accompany hypertension.  Blood tests provide further information and can even help assess if there are secondary causes.  Your doctor correlates all the information to assess a treatment plan. 

Initial therapy includes lifestyle changes like a healthy, nutritious diet, good sleep, low stress, and exercise.  If your blood pressure reading consistently remains elevated medication may be needed.  This may be temporary or lifetime depending on your lifestyle health habits.  For example, weight loss and eating the right foods especially those known to decrease blood pressure, can totally eliminate the need for medication and its side effects that can create new chronic problems. The best part is that you will feel better, and hopefully prevent any problems from untreated high blood pressure.  Best health!

Chronic Disease: Controlling the Incurable

Chronic disease affects more people as they age. It will affect everyone at some time in their life. Over 80% of the health costs worldwide are incurred by 20% of persons with one chronic disease or more. Chronic disease is defined as any illness that lasts more than three months, and/ or is recurrent. This includes such diseases as morbid obesity, arthritis, heart disease, diabetes, depression and many more. Most primary care doctors and family physicians see more patients with chronic diseases than any other health conditions.  The initial visit of the majority of patients seen on first visit have at least two or more chronic conditions.


Chronic disease management begins first and foremost with knowing as much as you can about the diseases that affect you.  Research yields information that strengthens your knowledge base of cause, effects, and what can be done to make it better or even preventable.  There are many evidence-based treatments that work, but some may help you more than others if at all.  For example, low back pain may be helped with hot or cold therapy, massage. acupuncture, spinal alignment. epidurals. medication and more.  Your spouse benefits from cold therapy and massage which hardly helps you. Hot therapy and acupuncture improves your pain and function, but not that of your spouse.  You must find what works best for you.  Ask your doctors for different treatments other than those they order as well.


Chronic disease responds favorably to a nutritious diet.  With medication noncompliance over 50% for whatever reason, you eat daily which allows for good, healthy food. Many foods have medicinal qualities that help control disease processes while keeping the healthy parts healthier.  Cooked dry beans are the perfect example.  They can provide as much as 9 to16 grams of fiber and 15 to 25 grams of protein in one-fourth cup  (60 to 150 calories).  A 14 ounce bag can yield about eight to ten cups at a cost of less than $2. Eaten alone or in other dishes, beans have powerful potent antioxidants that overpower cellular oxidative stress of chronic disease states.  High fiber is good for so many chronic problems such as heart disease, high lipids, diabetes, hypertension and more.  As you decrease processed foods in your diet, and add more fresh food your body responds with lower blood pressure, less pain, less overall stress, and good feelings of good health!


As chronic diseases progress especially with aging, many people move less.  Less movement opens the door for more chronic disease, and worsening of any you may already have.  Daily motion is the magic potion lotion.  Movement in activities of daily living count, and exercise helps.  At least ten minutes per day helps.  At home exercise programs work and are less stressful than going out.  Fancy home gyms with exercise equipment are nice but unaffordable for many.  Sitting, standing or laying you can do arm circles, leg raises, torso twists, and more.  Walking in place also works.  This type of activity improves physical and mental status to better.


You can control chronic diseases by choosing that which helps what you have.  Controlling the incurable involves routines designed for you.  This in itself improves overall quality of life and gives positive personal satisfaction that helps mental issues that may become chronic in themselves.  Best health!

Read and Learn for Your Health

Read what you need. Learn about what you need to maintain good health and well-being.  Health literacy is an important part of your self-care health care.  It helps promote better health and quality of life. 

Medical science progresses so rapidly!  It is impossible for health care providers to keep up with all these new developments. Be aware of treatments your doctors and healthcare team have yet to hear about or are unlikely to ever find out about.  The overwhelming amount of new health information that comes out is far too much for many to stay current on every disease and treatment.  This should not stop you the patient from finding out all you can.  The same goes for wellness.  Participating in your health care is mandatory to maintain good health, achieve wellness, and overcome illness.

There are so many different treatments and modalities that compliment traditional medicine.  As many lack training in these areas they are unable to tell the patient.  Asking your doctor is a good starting place as is telling your doctor about the things you have read about or tried that helped.  In turn this may evoke a response by your physician to find out more, and even share with other patients and colleagues who may in turn share their “new” information which your doctor can share with you.

Reading and learning are vital to good health.  Informed choices based on fact have proven to yield better health outcomes.  Best health!

Prevention Requires Less Intervention

Prevention and early detection are important for your health and wellness.  Routine check ups are shown to improve overall health while requiring less medical intervention and treatments.  Done on a "routine" basis means just that - in a consistent manner based on your health profile.  As one gets older, or if one has chronic disease they may become  more frequent than every few years.  As you prepare to see your doctor you will find that Patient Handbook to Medical Care: Your Personal Health Guide is the ideal reference book to inform you about what checkups and tests you may need for prevention intervention.

This Writer's Digest International Self-Published Book Award winner informs patients about basic medical care. By reading this how-to reference book you will learn:

• how to keep a medical diary
• how to get your medical records
• how to document your complete medical history
• what the physical exam should include
• about preventive tests and when to get them
• about tests your doctor orders
• about specialists and other medical providers
• about health care plans and coverage
• how to seek quality health services

Patient Handbook to Medical Care: Your Personal Health Guide is on Kindle, and can be borrowed via the Kindle Owner's Lending Library.