Wow. Blood pressure is a major contributor to heart disease. It's also a major clue that you may have heart disease. Those are pretty well know facts, but did you know that it's your body's way of trying to fix itself? How about the fact that it makes you feel just awful. Did you know that? Well here's some good news. It's treatable. Pretty darn easily to! Here's what your body is doing.
The pressure in your heart goes up because your arteries get narrow. Your heart still needs to move just as much blood but it has less space to do it. As a result it has to push HARDER! Imagine a water balloon with a pin prick in it. The water comes out in a little stream. If you squeezed the balloon the water will gush out faster. A heart that works that hard becomes a problem. Just imagine how tiring it must be.
High blood pressure starts to damage your arteries. This damage can turn into (brace yourselves) a burst artery, called an aneurysm. It can also make your arteries harden, cause stroke, heart attacks, kidney failure, congestive heart failure, and even death. I told you to brace yourself. That's some pretty awful stuff.
See, your blood pressure goes up because your arteries are skinny to begin with. Pushing the blood faster and harder tends to damage these skinny arteries more. What happens? You guessed it. They just get skinnier! More plaque builds up to "scar" the artery. The artery gets even narrower. Now your heart has to work even HARDER! So now your heart is really working hard. It's double timing it to get the blood where it needs to be. The bad news is that your heart needs blood to. It needs lots of oxygen to work. If it's working hard it will suck oxygen and use it to support itself.
To bad you need that oxygen to. Now your heart will pick itself first so you're left out. Sorry. Guess we didn't need to breathe after all right? All of the sudden people that suffer from high blood pressure find themselves exhausted and short of breath. It's a miserable feeling and it directly points to your heart working to hard. Have you ever wondered why you get out of breath when you work out or get excited? Well the answer is easy. When you're working hard, your heart is doing 10 times more. It's using your oxygen and leaving you a little short. Go figure. It can also make you feel bad by giving you dizzy spells, swelling up your ankles and feet, causing chest pain, changing your vision, giving you leg cramps, and causing you to lose your concentration i.e. forgetful periods.
What's silly to me is that so many people have a blood pressure problem and don't know it or don't treat it. It absolutely does lead to all those big bad things listed above that can kill you but more then that it makes you feel bad! If you have a cold you treat it right? Why not your heart? With the right medication high blood pressure is easily treatable. If you stay on the medication your heart will work less and work better. You'll perk up, feel better, and get stronger. Imagine that!
Now don't get all grumpy with your heart for sucking up all your oxygen and hurting itself worse. It's doing it's best with what you give it. Honestly, it wouldn't be in this mess if you'd been watching it! Luckily for all of us we live in a time when blood pressure can be treated with a minimum of fuss. There's nothing to it. Really. Most of the time your regular doctor can diagnose and treat it so you don't even have to go see someone new. Now isn't that easy? Honestly, I think it took me longer to write this blog post then it should take you to get it checked. No excuses people! Unless of course you WANT to feel bad...
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