How Do I Lower My Blood Pressure Without Meds.

[mommysboy]

Finally, I couldn't avoid having my blood pressure taken after coming down with a slight infection (this time in the UK). I didn't have time to get uptight I suppose, and it came out at 128/80.

I think it was white coat syndrome as my diet and alcohol intake has been a little excessive over the past few months.

Interesting that over an 18 month period it should vary so much from 115/65 to 155/90 !!!! perhaps that reflects the need for moderation in my life.

[Nawtier]

Interested in this as I have had a rise in BP of late apparently.

I detest taking medication and very rarely, if ever will finish taking something prescribed for the full course, most times I cancel the majority of drugs ordered by a doc here anyway.

I would prefer to find other ways to reduce and keep it down.

I do not drink coffee, maybe 3 cups a week at most, usually only 1.

I have stopped salt in any use myself at home or away when possible, missus still uses small amounts in cooking, but thats it. We eat at home more often than not and junk food is a rarity in our eating schedule, at most once a month.

I am 5'11" and around 82/84 kilo's.

Exercise is the lacking area though I know it, but I prefer active work to organised and specific exercise, it bores me to tears doing the same thing repeatedly and I cannot do it for any extended period. I would like to do swimming regularly, but we have no pool nearby.

So not really sure why my BP went up, but it has and wish to lower it naturally.

[FBN]

All BPs can benefit from diet and excercise but the impact that this can have depends on your age and also on the levels of pressures. Diastolic being the most important as this represents the lower pressure your system is under when the heart relaxes.

If you diastolic pressure is above 100 at age above 55 and you have a family history, you will probably need medication in addition to diet and excercise.

The benefit of aerobic excercise is that it lowers the heart rate and also causes for the whole vascular system to "relax" or be more tolerant to postural changes and generally more responsive.

[jsflynn603]

Some good advice has already been given and I’m echoing some of that.

You’re clearly addicted to caffeine. Interestingly it’s not really a problem unless it is the (or one of) factor that is causing the increased BP. I would theorize that the level of caffeine that you maintain is such that if someone force fed you one extra cup of coffee, immediately after drinking one your body would go bonkers (i.e. go into seizure or coma, develop tachycardia, etc). Caffeine addiction is remarkable in that people can maintain a caffeine level at the boundary where caffeine becomes severely toxic—but not exceed it. The caffeine addiction is bad if it’s a cause of high BP or if it creates anxiety otherwise it’s a “too much of anything is bad” sort of thing. You might want to consider that you are self-medicating by caffeine use and ask “why.” ADD/ADHD people routinely do this, but it just may be a habit.

Nasal steroids at proper dosages are not likely a factor, nor are gastric reflux or its meds.

Your weight is up but you still say “slim.” Therefore it is unlikely that weight is an issue for you, though losing the kilos may drop your BP by several points.

Your resting pulse is low and you get aerobic exercise, both pluses. Your arterial health is most likely fine since we don’t see exaggerated differences between systolic and diastolic numbers. For instance take 120/70, the difference is 50mm, this represents in part the elasticity of your circulatory system. If I saw 120/95 that could indicate a hardening of the arteries (and thus reduced elasticity,) further you run a lot and probably have. Therefore your HDL’s are probably high (the good cholesterol) which is a good thing. If you wish to check arterial health consider running a lipid profile and look at the HDL/LDL ratio, triglycerides, etc. I think you can rest easy on the arterial health issue.

I’d advise buying any mid-priced blood pressure cuff. Try it once a day, same time of day, not after meals, at a time when you are relaxed. Don’t be alarmed if it reads 150 or 160 the first few times—that could be “new mid-priced blood pressure cuff syndrome.” But any anxiety will wear off after a few days. Then you should get fairly steady readings 140/138/140/144, if you get 120,150,115,160 the cuff does not work for you—return it and buy another until you find one that gives you steady’ish readings.

Take BP readings every other day, or every third day for a couple of weeks, now you have a baseline/average.

It should be (in my opinion) a number at or below 119/69. The 120/70 is just a sort of “magical number.” If you look at research, numbers above 120/70 relate to increased problems. For instance 140/90 might relate to a 3x increase of risk of issues, but even this 3x increase, at your age, translates to a very small (miniscule in numbers) risk (over the next several years). But you can use these same studies that show that 115/65 will relate to ½ the risk of a theoretical 120/70 person, therefore 115/65 in my opinion is better than 120/70.

Let’s look at factors one by one….but first I’ll say that (as others have said) one or two BP readings have a statistical value of nada. But still—your prior readings were in a white coat environment so there does seem to be a change…and let’s assume that you find that your average is higher than normal.

Factor 1: Caffeine. Though caffeine can be a factor in BP, sometimes it makes no difference. But there is another possibility. As you age it may be that the caffeine that you are used to, which your body used to deal with quite well—is now causing you anxiety and this manifests itself even if your resting BP is low. If you are more anxious than you were five years ago, consider weaning off the caffeine. If not you can try reducing the caffeine and see if your average BP drops.

Factor 2: Alcohol can definitely be a factor. You don’t tell us how much. If you drink more than two ounce equivalent (two regular beers, two 5 oz glasses of wine, two ounces of grain alcohol) this is probably an (or the) issue.

Factor 3: Diet. Sugar is not a problem unless you are developing a gut. If you are, consider Metabolic syndrome, look it up. It could be that you are pre-diabetic which can go hand in hand with increased BP. (Remember that this sort of BP increase and Metabolic syndrome won’t kill you in a year or five…but might over 20 years, so don’t get alarmed.) If you’re developing a gut, ask the doc for a fasting glucose and or fasting insulin level. But let’s assume sugar is not an issue, though reducing it (and especially reducing caffeine will likely end the acid reflux issue). You probably don’t get enough Potassium. Research potassium rich foods and increase your intake (banana, cantaloupe, etc.) this alone might reduce your BP by 4-6 points on both readings.

Diet II: Salt: No change over the past two decades I’ll bet so salt is not likely “the issue.” The whole salt thing came about by research on an Amazonian tribe who had no heart disease at any age. In the Amazon jungle sodium is very deficient. Hypothesis was salt is bad.

If you are Black, I’d agree as most black’s BP increase with salt intake. But Caucasians might or might not—if you cut back on salt intake and you see an average drop then you are “salt reactive.” Possibly you could use this method to reduce your BP even if the salt was not “the” issue.

Most hypertensive people (90-95%) become so without an identifying factor this is called “essential hypertension.” So none of the factors above could be “the cause,” yet some could be a mechanism that you can use, other than medication, to reduce your BP naturally.

If, after you try the various possible factors and you are still high, then consider BP meds, popping a pill (or ¼ of a pill) a day is a minor inconvenience (and some are not expensive) for a beneficial outcome and realize that you are doing nothing wrong, and everything right. Find a BP medication that has no side effects—if you try one and it does, drop it and find another.

Lastly as already pointed out meditation would likely help. You say you are “hard-working,” and I might ask: “Too hard working…?”

You’re doing the right thing, at the right time. Six months or even a year at 140 or 160 systolic is not likely to damage you that fast at your age—do what you’re doing, figure out how to reduce it and voila, you’ll live to be 110!

[FBN]

Some good advice has already been given and I'm echoing some of that.

Not quoting the whole post but the replies now actually should refer to post no 62, not the original OP; some of your comments (coffee etc) are not relevant to #62;