Medical Questions Answered » Blood Pressure

blood pressure

dobbs — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 23:55:22 +0000

Am taking ATACAND HCT 32-12.5 MG. Losartan/HCTZ has been suggested as a substitute, Is this a goog choice?…

Numb hands

Vaultman — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 09:52:03 +0000

Hands keep going numb, especially during sleep. This is severely painful from fingers to elbows. Pain is bad enough to wake me on an almost hourly basis. Any ideas?…

What is the best diet to prevent heart disease?

admin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 07:48:00 +0000

There are thousands of diet books out on the market. Some of
them have catchy titles or gimmicks that may help you stick to them for a while. Most of them offer sensible advice, but a few are not based on any scientific or nutritional principles at all. You really need to read and compare them with common sense and a healthy dose of skepticism.
Over the past thirty years, some things have been found consistently.
It turns out that the same diet that helps protect against obesity helps prevent cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, too. We should all eat less fat, especially animal fat. We should replace saturated animal fat with unsaturated fats, especially monounsaturated fats like olive oil. We should eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, especially those that contain fiber (like lentils and beans). Sometimes it is tricky to eat this kind of diet if you have diabetes. Lots of fresh fruits contain a lot of sugar and so can push your blood glucose levels high. Talking to a nutritionist or dietitian can be very helpful to get advice about how to incorporate these into your diet without causing your blood glucose to go up too much.

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Why should I take aspirin if I have no aches and pains?

admin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 07:46:00 +0000

In addition to being a painkiller and a drug that can reduce fever and
inflammation, aspirin makes the platelets in your blood less sticky. Platelets are tiny fragments of cells that float around in your blood and help your blood to clot. Although this is a good thing (to protect you when you cut yourself, for example), it can increase your risk of getting a blood clot in one of your arteries, and that can increase your
risk of a heart attack or a stroke.
A low dose of aspirin (81 mg) is recommended for many people with diabetes, especially if they are at increased risk for heart disease. I recommend it to most of my diabetic patients who are over the age of forty. Aspirin is an acid and can sometimes irritate your stomach, but if that is a problem, you can find “enteric-coated” tablets of aspirin available over the counter in most drug stores. This means that the aspirin has been wrapped in a thin layer of material that stops the aspirin from irritating your stomach. Once the pill has passed through the stomach, the thin coating dissolves so that the aspirin can be absorbed into your body without causing the stomach problem.

What should I do if I get a persistent cough on an ACE-inhibitor?

admin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 07:45:00 +0000

Some people notice that they get a ticklish, dry cough when they
first start taking ACE-inhibitor drugs like enalapril or ramipril. Usually this gets better in a few weeks as your body gets used to the new drug. Starting at a low dose and building the dose up slowly helps. Sometimes the cough was due to something else. Most people have a cough for a few days at some point in any year due to getting a head cold or sore throat from a winter virus.
It is rare for the cough from taking an ACE-inhibitor to be severe and persistent enough to make you want to stop taking the drug, but if it is, there are several options. There is another class of drugs that blocks the receptor that the Angiotensin Converting Enzyme acts on. These ACE receptor blocker drugs usually end in “-artan,” so you will see names like losartan or candesartan. These drugs seem to have
similar good effects to the ACE-inhibitors, although we do not have as much information about them. They do not cause a cough and so
are easier to take for people who have trouble taking ACE-inhibitors.
The ACE receptor blockers have not been on the market as long as
ACE-inhibitors, and we don’t have as many long-term research studies with them, but what we know so far is very encouraging. Like the ACE-inhibitors, they help lower the blood pressure and seem to protect the kidneys from damage that causes you to lose protein in your urine.

Why should I be on an ACE-inhibitor blood pressure drug if my blood pressure is normal?

admin — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 07:37:00 +0000

Several well-designed research studies have showed that, even for
people with diabetes who have normal blood pressure, taking an
ACE-inhibitor is a good thing to do. These drugs slow down the rate
at which the kidneys get damaged from diabetes. They also lower the
risk of heart attacks and strokes and seem to protect the eyes from
diabetic damage. It is not exactly known why this is. Some doctors
are so enthusiastic about the protective benefit of ACE-inhibitors
that they say all diabetic patients should take them, no matter how young they are and even if they have normal blood pressure and have no evidence of kidney damage. I think that is going too far. Not
only are drugs expensive, they all have side effects.
Before taking any drug, you need to be able to answer the question,
will taking this drug likely do me more good than harm? If you are a healthy teenager with well-controlled diabetes, normal blood pressure, and no evidence of kidney damage, the benefits are likely
to be tiny, and so the risks of side effects outweigh that benefit. We
would have to treat thousands of patients like that for ten years or more before any one of them would gain any benefit. During that time, several of them might develop life-threatening (or even fatal)
side effects, so the risks outweigh any benefit. You should certainly
talk to your doctor about whether an ACE-inhibitor would be a good idea for you.

What are the best drugs to lower blood pressure?

admin — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 07:35:00 +0000

There are many types (or classes) of drug to lower blood pressure.
One of the oldest, cheapest, but most important, is thiazide
diuretics. These are pills that make you urinate more (some people
call them “water pills,” because they make your body pass more
urine). They are often the first drugs to be used to treat blood pressure. They are not the most powerful blood pressure drug, but even if they are not enough on their own, they help make other blood
pressure drugs work better.
Another important class of drugs is called ACE-inhibitors (which
stands for Angiotensin Converting Enzyme inhibitors). The names of
the ACE-inhibitor drugs all end in “-pril.” These include captopril,
lisinopril, enalapril, and ramipril, among others. Another class is the
Beta-blockers that slow down the heart rate. You may need to take
two, three, or even more different types of blood pressure drugs in
order to keep your blood pressure down.

What can I do to lower my blood pressure without taking drugs?

admin — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 07:33:00 +0000

The same kind of diet that protects against heart disease and is
best to treat diabetes will also help keep your blood pressure
lower. A healthy diet should be low in fat (especially animal fat)
and high in high-fiber carbohydrates (like lentils, beans, and
vegetables). Lowering the amount of protein and salt in your diet can also help reduce your blood pressure. Getting regular exercise
and doing things to reduce your stress level will also help to lower
your blood pressure.

High Blood Pressure

Romy — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 03:44:55 +0000

What is a quick remedy if you have a high blood pressure.…