About a year ago I got a series of bad nose bleeds. One particularly bad one resulted in me going to a and e where they stopped the bleeding but also took my BP. Something like 180/120. Told to go immediately to my GP. Am now on max strength medication. I don’t drink, have a reasonable diet, am not particularly stressed and take regular exercise. I am possibly a stone overweight but not to a level (I think) that would contribute to a BP of that level. Doc says just one of those things. I’ve heard that even losing half a stone can make a big difference. I’m sceptical. I have lost a bit of weight but no difference although recognise I could try harder. Anyone with expertise thoughts suggestions on causes and potential med free solutions?

Doc says just one of those things.

Anyone with expertise thoughts suggestions on causes and potential med free solutions?

I assume “Doc” means a qualified medical doctor, i.e. someone with the expertise you are looking for. Commonsense says that losing weight will be beneficial.

I have a similar issue. BP readings for me vary quite a bit, can get high, and doc has put me on ACE inhibitors, then recently increased the dose.

Yes, weight, alcohol, poor sleep hygiene, salt etc. all contribute for me. I’m active, generally fit but have realised this doesn’t mean I can eat/drink what I like, so recently have dropped 8 pounds not eating crap. Target is another stone before Christmas and then keep it there.

My GP says this is very likely inherited as everyone in my family on both mum and dad’s side has had heart issues or strokes. Mum/two uncles had stents, one uncle had heart surgery and stroke, both grandfathers heart attacks and dad high BP 🙄

Hypertension top trumps. 180/140 here.

My GP said “by all means lose a little weight and cut down on salt but no amount of life style tinkering is going to fix that”. The drugs work though. 120/75 this morning.

There is no known cause for 90% of hypertension which astonishes me. You’d think there would be an enormous amount of research into it and a Nobel Prize for the guys who crack the problem.

So by all means lose a little weight but I think you’ll need to keep taking the tablets.

I’m not any sort of expert, but I dug into this a while back when my blood pressure was somewhere at the high end of normal and found some interesting stuff on the role that potassium plays. The focus tends to be on high salt levels, but as I understand it, the balance of salt and potassium is part of the bigger picture and if your potassium levels are low, this can contribute to high blood pressure, so that might be worth adding to your bigger picture. Blood tests maybe?

Also, and you’re probably aware of it, stress tends to raise blood pressure, which can mean that the readings taken at your GP or, I’m guessing particularly, at A and E, overstate your normal pressure. If you haven’t already, I’d consider maybe buying your own blood pressure monitor and checking your BP when you’re at home and more relaxed. You can always make a note of results and take them in with you when you see your GP.

Trumped,mine was 220/160,on admission via A&E with a stroke,runs in my mother’s family.BWD is spot on about BPs done in clinical situations.

156/103 in A&E recently.

Now 124/78 after dropping 10kg, reducing salt intake and 4mg Perandopril daily. Still dieting but doc doesn’t think I’m likely to get off the meds. High blood pressure runs in the family.

Getting your own monitor is good advice and they aren’t expensive unless you want one with an app that tracks it over time.

I’d consider maybe buying your own blood pressure monitor and checking your BP when you’re at home and more relaxed. You can always make a note of results and take them in with you when you see your GP.

I did this but found even taking my BP at home stressed me out 😂so now take the occasional reading (but carry on with the living healthy stuff obvs.)

Firstly, have you bought yourself a BP monitor? Omron do then for about £25. I’m not convinced BP measured in a doctors is always an accurate reflection of your true BP – you need to keep an eye on it yourself. (and take it at the right times – not after massive meal for instance.) I’d suggest that nothing is going to increase your blood pressure like an urgent visit to the docs with suspected high blood pressure!

My experience of weight loss + cleaning up my act to control BP was astonishingly good. I was borderline hypertension. Overnight I (largely) gave up Alcohol, Caffine. Reduced salt, started to run a couple of times a week. I saw a useful BP reduction in 3 days. Very quickly – as in weeks rather than months – my BP had gone from borderline hypertension to borderline ‘normal/ideal’. I’d lost 3 stone which was 15pc of my starting body weight.

So my experience of ‘cleaning up my act’ as a way to reduce BP is that it is staggeringly effective and faster than I could have imagined. I’m not sure how that equates to getting down from as high as 180 to a point where you no longer need drugs, especially if your act is already pretty clean.

Anyway the first step is getting yourself the blood pressure monitor, if you haven’t already:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Omron-Basic-Blood-Pressure-Monitor/dp/B003CYK6FA

Agree take BP readings so you can see how you’re doing independent of the GP visits. What I struggle with is the instructions say sit comfortably, relax for 5 mins, breath slowly then take a reading. I can do this and prob get an OK reading – but I’m not doing this for 90% of my day?

Isn’t it the spikes/peak in BP when you are stressed/rushing about/putting a load on your body that are an issue?

You’d think there would be an enormous amount of research into it and a Nobel Prize for the guys who crack the problem.

Most likely cause = Genetics.
Solution most proven to work = Medication to lower BP.

Can I have my prize 👍

Anyone with expertise thoughts suggestions on causes and potential med free solutions?

If you happen to be in S.E.Asia or Asia you can try to do this to see it works.

My father recommended this to few of his friends and it works.

Collect some Teak wood leaf from the ground (MUST be from the ground i.e. leafs that have dropped to the ground and NOT pluck from the tree)

Boil one or two leafs in water.

Drink it.

See how it goes as that is the traditional remedy for the local.

Not sure about the cause but must be something in your lifestyle or diet or even genetic …

What’s your diet OP?

I’ve heard that even losing half a stone can make a big difference. I’m sceptical.

Try it.

The Mediterranean diet, Lyon version.

https://ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/01.cir.103.13.1823. A triathlete friend was on statins etc. and then changed his diet, he wasn’t much overweight but lost a few kilos as a side effect of the diet. He has been statin free for a few years and his blood pressure is now in the normal range.

This is the key point in that report: “however, the study was stopped early because of significant beneficial effects noted in the original cohort”. The results were so good that the doctors realised that ethically and even leagally given French law they could not deprive the reference group of the diet – depriving them of it was dangerously high risk i.e. killing them.

Eliminate added sugar and salt.

Edukator – you’re mixing up cholesterol and blood pressure – two different things.
Nealglover – genetics isn’t a cause. It’s a mechanism for passing it on to your children. What is it that your genes do differently to mine? Work that out and win a prize.

have a reasonable diet, 

This is always worth looking into further because what constitutes a reasonable diet in our culture is often actually quite terrible, as in waaaay too much salt and sugar. One of the main reasons being they get chucked into relatively innocuous stuff by the handful (eg bread). Another reason is that we tend to measure how good our diet is by comparing it to those around us and make sure that we’re doing a bit better than them, and unfortunately those around us are very likely to have absolutely horrific diets!

I did this but found even taking my BP at home stressed me out 😂so now take the occasional reading (but carry on with the living healthy stuff obvs.)

Take them regularly and make it a routine thing and not pay much attention to it, just note down the numbers. Need to be around similar times if not taken throughout the day. Alternatively you can get a 24hr monitor. Causes stress but then you get used to it kicking in every now and again and just let it do its job. Averaged out mine was fine.

White coat syndrome and anxiety about BP skew it a lot.

Also, pee first. Full bladder can increase BP readings.

OP – what kind of regular exercise? I’m not particularly high for BP but was top end of normal*, borderline over. Family history of high BP though so been a concern. Since regularly doing MTB it’s dropped a lot and also my resting heart rate is way down. At home it’s in the 40s! Early on riding my heart rate would go crazy and not drop below 90 for hours after.

* – in US, top end of normal would be pre-hypertension and get you onto drugs. In UK it’s just “oh, perfectly normal, go away”. Not that I want the drugs. The riding keeps mine in check, but if I stop riding I have to pay more attention to it and my weight.

* – in US, top end of normal would be pre-hypertension and get you onto drugs. In UK it’s just “oh, perfectly normal, go away”.

A sign of an over medicalised society with most Docs in the pay of big pharma…

No I’m not, Donald, look at the cause of high blood pressure and you’l find there are many byond your control as they are down to genetices. However there are also many within your control including diet.

Salt is a factor and sugar is increasingly recognised as damaging arteries which secrete cholestoral at the damaged site narrowing arteries and rasing blood pressure. You think you’ve got a cholestoral problem but the root cause is sugar consumption.

Anyhow the OP can read my first contribution along with all the others (Nealglover makes a valid point you also rubbish due to the form he presents it not the foundation of what he’s saying) and evaluate himself, and perhaps make changes to his diet of which he can evaluate the effects. If he adopts the Lyon diet I predict he’ll weigh less, feel better and very probably have lower blood presure in a years time and be at lower risk of possible consequences of high blood pressure – what’s to lose ?

Edukator +1,and I can’t see any way it could hurt you to try.

No I’m not, Donald, look at the cause of high blood pressure and you’l find there are many byond your control as they are down to genetices.

Agreed. That’s largely the case for me and I would guess that’s also largely the case for the OP

However there are also many within your control including diet.

Agreed. And if you have borderline high BP you may well be able to sort it without medication.

But both the OP and I have very high BP which needs medication to avoid acute kidney damage, never mind long term CV disease. These levels are not borderline high, they’re borderline death. I don’t believe lifestyle modifications will solve the problem on their own (and neither does my GP).

Salt is a factor and sugar is increasingly recognised as damaging arteries which secrete cholestoral at the damaged site narrowing arteries and rasing blood pressure. You think you’ve got a cholestoral problem but the root cause is sugar consumption.

I don’t deny we eat too many simple sugars. Actually I couldn’t agree more. But I don’t think this is the root of the OPs problem. You say “You think you’ve got a cholestoral problem but the root cause is sugar consumption.”. The OP doesn’t think he’s got a cholesterol problem, he thinks he’s got a BP problem. I don’t know why you bring up cholesterol and link to a study on cholesterol which says nothing about BP. I’m not aware of any studies that link sugars to hypertension but if you know of any please let me know. This is where I think you’re going off at a tangent. (And by the way, arteries do not ‘secrete’ cholesterol as it cannot pass the endothelium. Now I’m digressing).

Neal was making a joke and so was I. 90% of high BP IS about genetics. But that gets us nowhere. We need to know HOW these genes cause High BP. Then we’ll have a proper understanding of the causes of hypertension and be able to do so much more, either through targetted meds or lifestyle modifications.

If he adopts the Lyon diet I predict he’ll weigh less, feel better and very probably have lower blood presure in a years time and be at lower risk of possible consequences of high blood pressure – what’s to lose ?

I agree. He’ll lose weight and therefore have lower BP. It’s not the only way to lose weight though. I’ve lost weight through different means and have lower BP. But any weight loss is good, never mind the diet.

My main point is that I had dangerously high BP. Without going on meds I was at serious risk of both short and long term damage which no amount of lifestyle modification would fix on its own. The OP seems me to be in the same boat and while he could do himself some favours by losing weight, exercising more and being even more chilled, first and foremost he really needs to take the pills.

Mine is caused by genetics – Haemochromatosis runs in the family.

This was discovered by accident when my brother was sent for a work health check due to new work insurer (he is in NZ). Of 32 cousins, 17 of us have it. Explains the three generations of heart related premature death…

I’m now on medication, is now at 140/90 to 150/100. Creeping up as my blood thickens this last year though.

I’ve another check up due in New year when I’m fully expecting I need to let blood (the treatment for Haemochromatosis) regularly, as my brother already does.

Hibiscus tea. Three strong cups a day. It contains a natural ACE inhibitor.

Plant based diet?.

Does anyone on this thread look like they have high blood pressure? I always have a red face / head and wonder if it’s due to high blood pressure (mine is always on the borderline of high at a doctor’s surgery when I’ve had it taken). Have a history of high blood pressure in the family, do often feel like someone is squeezing my body so the blood is forced into my skull a bit. Think I’ll get the BP monitor too – but any other red face people?!

I don’t think you can feel high bp.
Before my treatment I did feel tired, but again this could be related to the excess red blood cells I’m not getting rid of.

My GP said “by all means lose a little weight and cut down on salt but no amount of life style tinkering is going to fix that”. The drugs work though. 120/75 this morning.

I find this seeming ambivalence somewhat surprising (seems slightly defeatist too). It’s a seperate, but related, issue but I’m just 2 weeks into recovery from a heart attack – low BP, low cholesterol, low body weight & reasonably active (lifestyle risks calculated as less than 5%).

I was basically told that you couldn’t dodge genetics BUT had I not been in such good shape it’d have happened much earlier & potentially with worse consequences. I’ve also been encouraged not to go down the “well that didn’t work so I won’t bother” approach and to maintain a good lifestyle to minimise further risk (my other coronary arteries aren’t 100%). You might not be able to dodge genetic & you certainly can’t ‘cure’ it but wouldn’t you want to minimise risk and slow any worsening?

Since high blood pressure is a significant risk factor in heart disease I’d have thought that anything that can reduce it would be worth a try.

Some good stuff here – https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/high-blood-pressure-hypertension/

Neal was making a joke and so was I.

That I could not know, and it’s far from obvious. As far as I was concerned Neal had stated the obvious with a touch of humour but the facts weren’t a joke. I’ll state for a second time Neal is right however flipant his contribution.

So I’m adding: yes meds are the obvious answer, especially in the short term. However there are longer term stategies based on lifestyle and diet which can reduce the need for medication and in some cases eliminate it.

You’re very picky about language, donald. Which ever way it gets there, colestoral build up in arteries is there because the arterie has damage caused by high blood sugar levels and that cholestoral build up narrows arteries thus restricting blood flow and increasing blood pressure.

I agree more info from the OP would be useful, he doesn’t talk about cholestoral or which meds he’s on. This is a public forum not a consulting room, he’s looking for diverse views and we’re providing them. He can then reseach the points we’ve raised himself.

Try adding constructively rather than rubbishing others, donald, your blood presure will benefit.

Welcome to the club! I’ve been having awful headaches the last few years and when I visited the doc’s I was told my BP was sky high. She said it was probably genetics (my dads side of the family all have it) and I’m on meds the rest if my life, no arguments. There goes my dreams of being an astronaut.

The meds and a few changes to my diet have gotten me back to pretty much perfect BP but I’m stuck on the meds.

My BP was high, but not mega high about 10 years ago, 155/105.

Losing 20 pounds, getting much fitter and improved lifestyle – less stress, less booze, more sleep – and it’s down to c120/80 without meds, sometimes lower.

So I would look to diet,weight etc. But I would definitely take the meds if I needed to. My dad had a major stroke when he was my age (mid 50s) – changed his life.

Does anyone on this thread look like they have high blood pressure?

My GP has never said various weird symptoms I notice are directly caused by high BP, but they do seem to reduce when I look after myself, get the weight down. My weight has yo-yo’d a bit this year, initially made good progress, then let it slip a bit (fell into that ‘sod it, I’ll just enjoy myself’ mindset), weight/BP went up again, now back on track 🤞🏻

Yes, my complexion is ruddy (people say I always look healthy/tanned, ask if I’ve been on hols). Also get bad, throbbing headaches and sometimes with migraine-like stuff, vision goes a bit weird. When I was stressed and still working this used to happen when driving, had to stop on several occasions.

Keep away from the liquorice, it can make your blood pressure go sky high, which is a shame as Allsorts-alike taste so good.

Hi Edukator – managing my BP well, thanks for your concern 🙂

Are you suggesting that Atherosclerosis is a cause of Hypertension? Conventional wisdom is the other way round but it’s an interesting theory and I’ll give it some thought.

You can’t change your genes. But small changes in lifestyle may have an impact. After that pharmacology is your friend. The relationship between blood pressure and long-term survival is one of the best studied endpoints in the literature.

A little less weight, a little bit more exercise (which may help alleviate stress) some diet changes. And after that, you may well still need some pharmacology.

Hope it gets sorted.

Stress is a big cause. I went in a couple of times a few years back, high. Ended up with a 24h monitor. Sh1t me up big style. Monitor fitted, fine, in work BP through the roof, all day. Home, cooked tea, sat down, it was ‘low normal’. Overnight low…. white coat symptoms.

I am, however, prone to high cholesterol, so now on tablets – both parent’s didn’t think to tell us they have high cholesterol. Went in for checks, BP was fine this time, but cholesterol 7.5… tablets now for 4 months, feel better TBH, no side effects. I’m nearly 50, still doing more exercise than the kids in my office, mention getting dirty on a bike, oh noooo.

Conventional wisdom is the other way round but it’s an interesting theory and I’ll give it some thought.

Some reading would be better. For years people thought the cholestral in their diet was the problem. It’s increasingly clear that high cholestrol is the response to high sugar intake and the correspsonding insulin secretion. It’s the sugar that’s damaging your arteries to the point that just sugaring your drinks increases the risk of heart attack by 20%.

If you don’t like reading watch

I completely agree with the video. I’ve been a follower of Malcolm Kendrick’s blogs for a long time – he was a friend at University – and the video is completely in line with his thinking.

It’s your assertion that plaque leads to high BP, rather than the other way around that is new to me. If you can point me to any information on that I’d be grateful.

Hi, thanks very much for responses/advice. Have a monitor and had a 24 hr monitor. BP consistently high. Started on 2.5 mg ramipril but bp remained high. Now on 10 mg. By diet ok I mean I eat fruit and veg drink water occasional red meat etc but I do eat too much sugar (if a factor). Re exercise I aim for three times a week with lots of walking in between. I do what is realistic and sustainable for me. Generally what I’ve taken from comments is that weight loss is worth persevering with and I will try harder. But that ultimately it may be genetics (dad has high bp) and I’ll keep taking the meds. I reckon I’ve probs had high bp for a number of years given what I know now. I’m interested in some comment on headaches as I’ve started to get migraines over last few yrs. Doc says not related. Next time I’m in se Asia I’m definitely getting me some bark.
Ta

Next time I’m in se Asia I’m definitely getting me some bark.

Not the bark. The Teak tree leaf! MUST be the one collected from the ground. NOT pluck from the three.

There plenty of teak tree on the road side but make sure they are actually teak tree.