High Blood Pressure

On 23 Mar 2005 12:54:17 -0800, wrote:

Wouldn't want to get held up in the event I
can't show a decent BP reading at the MD's office.

Your doc should accept readings taken at home, especially if you go in
and correlate your machine with his.

My doc handled it this way: he wrote a letter to me describing my
medical regimen, and saying: "In a recent series of BP readings, you
showed xx/xx, xx/xx, and xx/xx." Those were MY readings!

The FAA accepted that letter, though it did take three months to shake
the cert out of St Louis or wherever they hide them.



-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
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the blog: www.danford.net

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 18:39:38 -0500, "Blood pressure tip"
wrote:

he BOTTOM number, the one we all concern
ourselves

Er .. no.

Both numbers are important, but most people are more concerned about
the top one. (Perhaps wrongly so, but in any event, the important
number is the one that is high for its range. 160/70 ought to worry
you, and so should 130/110.)


-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
the blog: www.danford.net

Now I am NOT lifting my own body weight! This is weight training I'm
talking about, not weight lifting. And I use the machines, not free
weights. I choose a weight with which I can do 8-10 repetitions.

Same here. I go for maximum reps, not maximum weight.

With bench press I do 100 reps every other day, in 5 sets of 20 -- but it's
only 70 pounds. The idea is to build stamina and cardiovascular, not bulk.

Lower body (which we do on the "off" days from upper body) is a bit more
strenuous, but we're still talking 50 reps of all exercises, in 5 sets of
10 -- which tells you that we're not lifting the max weight possible.

And I walk a mile every morning, briskly.

And my BP is still high, dang it. :-(
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article ,
Cub Driver wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 15:52:16 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

He has prescribed Vasotec for me,

This is an ACEI (aka ACE Inhibitor, aka angiotensin converting enzyme
inhibitor). It's works by affecting your BP at your kidneys. Most people
are posting about experiences they have had with beta-blockers (eg.
atenolol, metopolol) which can slow down your heart and cause other side
effects.
There's no logical reason an ACEI should affect your ability to fly.
As always talk to your primary MD for more info.

In article ,
Cub Driver wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 15:31:00 -0500, Dave Butler wrote:
Everything has sodium

Well, there's always Bite Sized Shredded Wheat. Of course, you'll have
to eat it without milk ...

It's important to remembe than when it comes to BP that sodium control
is not as important as people think. Of people that have high BP only 25%
respond to a low salt diet, that is the majority of with people high BP
(75%) salt intake as no (serious) affect on thier BP. And it has never
been shown that people that do not have high blood pressure will develop
it on a high salt diet.
However, salt those affect your kidneys and how much 'fluid' you carry
around in your body. Many people that have high BP also have other
medical conditions that make having lots of fluid less than ideal.
THe point I wanted to make was that you should cehck to see IF your
have high BP IS you respond to salt. If you (like most) do not then it's
ok to eat salty foods. However, edema (swelling, normaly of the feet and
hands) can occur if your high BP is due to certain causes or you have
other medical issues that often are seen at the same time as HTN (eg. CHF,
past MI, CAD, renal problems, etc.).

In article ,
he BOTTOM number, the one we all concern
ourselves

Er .. no.

Both numbers are important, but most people are more concerned about
the top one. (Perhaps wrongly so, but in any event, the important
number is the one that is high for its range. 160/70 ought to worry
you, and so should 130/110.)

Both numbers are important, so is the difference between the numbers.
Worst outcmes have been observed with wide pulse pressures. The upper
number is the systolic blood pressure, and the lower number is the
diasytolic blood pressure. SBP and DBP. DBP reflects the pressure at
rest, and SBP reflects the increase in pressure when your heart
squeezes/pumps blood. High DBP is bad for 'end organ damage' (kidneys,
eyes, liver, etc). High SBP is bad for 'popping things': stroke, heart
attack, ulcers, etc.
A wide difference between the numbers (low resting pressure, but high
pressure to pump/move blood) normally means theres a 'blockage' somewhere
(often in the heart, eg. aortic stenosis; CAD leading to a blockage to the
brain, etc).
A lot of 'older' citizens will develop only high SBP. There's some
debate about the risk factors for having a normal DBP with a high SBP, but
on the whole we try to treat everyone. The problem is that most meds drop
both, so you don't have a lot of room to play with if someone is 160/75

Cub Driver wrote:

Now I am NOT lifting my own body weight! This is weight training I'm
talking about, not weight lifting. And I use the machines, not free
weights. I choose a weight with which I can do 8-10 repetitions.

According to a weight-training course I took in the dark ages for college PE,
this is the perfect weight for any exercise.

George Patterson
Drink up, Socrates -- it's all-natural.

I have a dog.
Some studies have shown that pets help reduce one's BP.

jsmith wrote:

I have a dog.
Some studies have shown that pets help reduce one's BP.

Those studies obviously didn't involve my cats. MEERCAT, STOP THAT!!!!!!

George Patterson
Drink up, Socrates -- it's all-natural.

What I constantly see is a situation where it's 95% diet and 5% hereditary -
and yet all of the 95% think they belong to the 5% - ie "it's not my fault -
and nothing can be done about it"




"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
news
Cockpit Colin wrote:
Yes and no - yes in that there can be a tendency towards hypertension
passed
in the genes, no in that it's been proven that diet affects the way in
which
those genes choose to express themselves.

Personally, I have to wonder if the reason grandma + mum + the kids have
similar medical problems (including hypertension / obesity / type 2
diabeties etc) is that they've all eaten similar diets - passed down
from
one generation to the next.

My hypertension came in in just 3 months. I went from 115/60 to 165/105
during one summer when I was 37. The doc was pretty worried at first
and checked all sorts of things (EKG, chest x-ray, every blood test
known to man, etc.). He found nothing wrong and my diet didn't change
during that 3 months. And diet changes and exercise since then have had
no appreciable affect. The doc said it was heredity and a low dose of
ACE inhibitor has kept the BP in check for nearly 8 years now.

Sure, diet affects a lot of things, but you simply can't blame every ill
on diet.


Matt