As with every other area of your health, blood pressure requires a proper balance. If your blood pressure is too high you are in danger. If your blood pressure is too low you are at risk. If your blood pressure doesn’t respond to position changes properly then you can be in trouble as well.
High blood pressure, or hypertension, is still a silent killer in America. We are familiar with the risks of having blood pressure that is too high, the negative impact it has on our heart, and the risk of disease associated with high blood pressure. High blood pressure damages the blood vessels, it stresses the heart and it damages the kidneys. There is not an organ system that is safe from the ravages of untreated high blood pressure.
The key to treating high blood pressure is to treat it properly. For example, if you are overweight the solution to your high blood pressure is weight loss…not blood pressure medication. For every one pound of body fat you store, you create 7 additional miles of blood vessels! This leads to high blood pressure. You need to find out why your blood pressure is high and make the lifestyle changes required to lower your blood pressure. There are many safe, natural and effective ways to lower your blood pressure and improve your health.
If you have high blood pressure you are not going to be able to fully restore your health and you need to stop the damage associated with high blood pressure.
What about low blood pressure? Is it possible for your blood pressure to be too low? The definite answer is yes! If your blood pressure is too low then you will start having decreased perfusion of all the tissues in your body. What perfusion simply means is the actual amount of oxygen getting to the destination target. This can lead to oxygen deprivation and other negative effects.
If you have low blood pressure and can’t fully deliver oxygen to the required tissues you are not going to be able to fully restore your health and you need to stop the damage associated with too low blood pressure.
Another problem can be if your blood pressure doesn’t respond to your positional changes the correct way. One symptom of this happening is if you get dizzy or lightheaded when getting out of bed or sitting up out of a chair. When you stand up your blood pressure should naturally elevate since it has to work harder to pump blood against gravity. Failure to do so can be detrimental to your health and increase your risk of falling. In many cases, the blood pressure is elevated so the person is given a blood pressure medication. This lowers the blood pressure, but it also makes the standing blood pressure changes worse and can have serious consequences for the person taking the drug.
I advise my patients to have their blood pressure measured while lying on their back, immediately when standing and while seated. The seated blood pressures should be taken and recorded from both arms. If there is high blood pressure, low blood pressure, or abnormal position changes in blood pressure then further evaluation and digging into root causes is required. Often times a medication (even a medication other than blood pressure medication) can have a negative side effect leading to blood pressure changes. If you are on multiple medications and you are seeing negative blood pressure changes then visit with a trusted pharmacist and your prescribing doctor to see if changes can be made. Most of the time changes are possible…and beneficial.
When trying to build a foundation for health, blood pressure is a very important key component that can’t be overlooked.
