Blood Pressure
“What can I do to lower my blood pressure?” is probably one of the most common questions I am asked as a doctor. My correct answer is, “I don’t know”. The problem with blood pressure is that it is a common symptom. It is a symptom that something is wrong, something is out of balance. It can be caused by many, many things.
High blood pressure may be caused because regulatory hormones are not correct. A thyroid problem may cause high blood pressure. The adrenal glands make adrenaline which causes your heart to speed so an adrenal gland problem can cause high blood pressure. Sex hormone imbalance can cause high blood pressure, especially if it is for a short spurt of time. One group of blood pressure drugs (ACE inhibitors) work by blocking a specific kidney hormone so a kidney hormone problem can affect your blood pressure.
High blood pressure may be caused from a nervous system regulatory problem. The nerves to the heart may be affected by something that is interfering with the signals to the heart. The internal brain may have a problem such that it is not sending the correct messages to the heart.
High blood pressure may be caused from a congested liver “damming up” the system. Obesity may make it more difficult for the blood to circulate and result in blood pressure being high. Malfunction of the heart itself including the nerves in the heart may yield high blood pressure. There may be toxins in the blood that the body is trying to rapidly filter through the liver, kidneys and spleen that is causing the blood pressure to be high. Kidneys and adrenal glands regulate volumes of fluids so they can be underneath a blood pressure problem.
There may of course be problems with the circulatory system itself. If the arteries are not dilating or becoming bigger when they should it can cause the blood pressure to be too high. Associated with this is plaquing or hardening of the arteries. This of course begs the question, “ Why do the arteries have plaque?”. That’s a topic for another time, but I will tell you right now that it is not because of cholesterol.
Finally high blood pressure can have a strong mental component. The typical picture that you get of someone who is functioning under a lot of immediate stress is someone with a red face, veins pounding in his neck with ears that are burning. You can see that the answer to what is causing high blood pressure is not always simple. The medical doctors pretty much don’t even try to find out and just call it “Essential Hypertension” which just means they don’t know why it’s there.
The typical routine is to check the blood pressure, label it high, then prescribe at least one drug, sometimes several to get the blood pressure down. This sounds pretty straight forward but it isn’t as straight forward as it sounds. Sometimes the blood pressure is high because it is compensating for a problem in the body. For instance, an area of the body may not be receiving the oxygen that it needs so the blood pressure goes higher to insure that the oxygen gets into the oxygen deprived areas. If the blood pressure is indiscriminately lowered without addressing the low oxygen area first that area will starve for oxygen and it may cause severe problems. If it’s the brain for instance the person may develop dementia or worse.
Another problem is that the drugs, like all drugs have side effects. A lot of men develop erectile dysfunction a a result of blood pressure drugs. Ironically, studies have shown that while taking blood pressure medications do in fact decrease the instance of stroke, an equal number of people die from the side effects.
Just what is high blood pressure? I can remember as a boy my mother telling me that she had borderline high blood pressure because the bottom number of her blood pressure was in the upper 90’s. That’s the diastolic number, the number it is at when the blood pressure is at its lowest. At that time high blood pressure was when the bottom number was above 100. Then later blood pressure became high when the low number was above 90. Then high blood pressure was when the low number was above 80. Now there is a movement to have high blood pressure labeled if the low number is above 75. The high number used to be normal if it was below the sum of 100 plus your age because as you age your arteries normally become less elastic. There was a study done not all that long ago that set the new high number at 120 for everyone. An independent analysis of this data by the way has disputed this new “normal”.
What used to be a fairly wide range for normal blood pressure that accounted for an acceptable variance in the population has now been narrowed to this little band that quite a high percentage of the population doesn’t fit into. You can see that an awful lot of people now have high blood pressure that didn’t used to and an awful lot more people are now on high blood pressure drugs.
So what do you do if your blood pressure is high? The answer is to see if you can figure out what is underneath the problem and fix it. Cause Point Correlative Testing is an excellent tool for this. Because the causes of blood pressure are many it may take a little bit of doing to sort it out. Likewise since some of the underlying problems have taken years to develop it may take some time to fix. But the first step is to locate the underlying sources of why the blood pressure is high in the first place and address them.
Once these are found it is not impossible for your blood pressure to return to normal. You may find that you can then work with your medical doctor and take less and less and less of your blood pressure medication until you find your blood pressure is in a normal range without any drugs at all. If you or someone you know would like help sorting out their blood pressure call (260) 459-6160 (Ft. Wayne) or (773) 929-3964 (Chicago) for an appointment.
