4 ms·

> 6-7k mg Why not say grams? A thousand miligrams is a gram. I've always "suffered" from low blood pressure. Never quite to the point of fainting when I stand

by Swizec 8y ago

> 6-7k mg Why not say grams? A thousand miligrams is a gram. I've always "suffered" from low blood pressure. Never quite to the point of fainting when I stand up too quick, but it's been close a few times. Exercise for me means I have to go out of my way to supplement sodium or I start getting muscle cramps. So I wonder, what does high pressure feel like? How do you know when it's too high? Or is it just something you notice on a device and know to fix because doctors say so?

greglindahl 8y ago
Most people find out from having it measured at a doctor's checkup, but, if it gets high enough it feels like someone's squeezing your brain. The lack of symptoms for most people is why the US has things like free blood pressure checkups, and automated machines in the waiting areas of pharmacies.
smhost 8y ago
It feels like there's too much blood in my head/face.
dharness 8y ago
Most food packaging measures sodium in mg, so I feel using those units is easier to reason about for most people.
- namibj 8y ago
  There is a reason the SI system uses decades. It's exactly that it makes this trivial, but I guess if one is not that accustomed to thinking in decimals/metric, it might not be as obvious. mg is also just composed of the SI prefix m = milli, and the SI unit g = gram, where the latter is a little weird due to naming problems early on leading to it being the only SI unit where the base unit, the kg = kilogram already has a prefix. The milli means thousands, so you are just saying 6 thousand thousands gram. If you internalize SI units, and decompose them automatically, this seems at least confusing, possibly worse, depending on how picky the reader is about unnecessarily contorted grammar in general. I myself advocate the use of prefixed gram for the cases where people use tons, but I accept that people in general don't like them being called megagrams = Mg from now on. This is by the way the reason why mb != MB when denoting storage space, but 8e9 mb = 1 MB, due to the former denoting millibits, and the latter megabytes. There is also MiB, mibibytes, denoting 2^30 B. Microsoft denotes MiB as MB, which is wrong, and lead to great confusion. Be careful, embrace SI units, they make your life easier.
  - commandar 8y ago
    Using SI doesn't mean you shouldn't maintain consistency between units you're actively comparing to avoid inadvertent conversion error. If your working units are mg, using mg across the board is completely sensible. It lowers the mental load involved and reduces the chance of the human factor introducing errors. It has nothing to do with being uncomfortable with working with SI units and everything to do with having a consistent working environment for me. For example, If I were drawing something up in CAD and needed a particular face to be 120mm, I'm completely aware that could be represented as 12cm, but I want the software to label that as 120mm so that it's consistent with e.g., a 23mm face next to it. Your working units for sodium in food consumption are milligrams. Labeling the final sum the same way is a good thing.
    - DanBC 8y ago
      Sure, but say 6000 mg, don't say 6k mg.
      - commandar 8y ago
        That'd be ideal, yes, but I'll take 6k mg over 6g when mg are the working units every time. The k makes it much more explicit that there was a shift in magnitude than just silently converting between units.
    - namibj 8y ago
      Yes, but if the face is 1200mm, you do see it as 1.2 m. I rarely like the intermediate units (1e1, 1e2, 1e-1, 1e-2), as they feel like bikeshedding.
  - Laforet 8y ago
    It might look wrong in isolation, however the choice of unit do add context to a conversation. For example, there are instances where one would say "twenty hundred" instead of "two thousand". Sodium too is typically denoted in milligrams because most other micronutrients are measured in the same unit.
narag 8y ago
Terrible headaches.
seandougall 8y ago
In most cases, it feels like absolutely nothing. Above roughly 150 systolic, it can start to manifest as headaches (as others have mentioned), but doesn't always. In my case, after it had gone undiagnosed long enough (by an incompetent doctor), I had extremely severe headaches, constant nausea and vomiting, and vision problems that turned out to be capillary hemorrhages in my retinas. That was at around 240/120. BUT: I am extremely lucky to have had all those horrendous symptoms. They alerted me to the severity of the problem, and caused me to escalate to a competent doctor. For many people who get up to that level of blood pressure, the first (and potentially last) symptom is a stroke or a heart attack.

by Swizec 8y ago

greglindahl 8y ago

Most people find out from having it measured at a doctor's checkup, but, if it gets high enough it feels like someone's squeezing your brain. The lack of symptoms for most people is why the US has things like free blood pressure checkups, and automated machines in the waiting areas of pharmacies.

smhost 8y ago

It feels like there's too much blood in my head/face.

dharness 8y ago

Most food packaging measures sodium in mg, so I feel using those units is easier to reason about for most people.

namibj 8y ago
There is a reason the SI system uses decades. It's exactly that it makes this trivial, but I guess if one is not that accustomed to thinking in decimals/metric, it might not be as obvious. mg is also just composed of the SI prefix m = milli, and the SI unit g = gram, where the latter is a little weird due to naming problems early on leading to it being the only SI unit where the base unit, the kg = kilogram already has a prefix. The milli means thousands, so you are just saying 6 thousand thousands gram. If you internalize SI units, and decompose them automatically, this seems at least confusing, possibly worse, depending on how picky the reader is about unnecessarily contorted grammar in general. I myself advocate the use of prefixed gram for the cases where people use tons, but I accept that people in general don't like them being called megagrams = Mg from now on. This is by the way the reason why mb != MB when denoting storage space, but 8e9 mb = 1 MB, due to the former denoting millibits, and the latter megabytes. There is also MiB, mibibytes, denoting 2^30 B. Microsoft denotes MiB as MB, which is wrong, and lead to great confusion. Be careful, embrace SI units, they make your life easier.
- commandar 8y ago
  Using SI doesn't mean you shouldn't maintain consistency between units you're actively comparing to avoid inadvertent conversion error. If your working units are mg, using mg across the board is completely sensible. It lowers the mental load involved and reduces the chance of the human factor introducing errors. It has nothing to do with being uncomfortable with working with SI units and everything to do with having a consistent working environment for me. For example, If I were drawing something up in CAD and needed a particular face to be 120mm, I'm completely aware that could be represented as 12cm, but I want the software to label that as 120mm so that it's consistent with e.g., a 23mm face next to it. Your working units for sodium in food consumption are milligrams. Labeling the final sum the same way is a good thing.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    Sure, but say 6000 mg, don't say 6k mg.
    - commandar 8y ago
      That'd be ideal, yes, but I'll take 6k mg over 6g when mg are the working units every time. The k makes it much more explicit that there was a shift in magnitude than just silently converting between units.
  - namibj 8y ago
    Yes, but if the face is 1200mm, you do see it as 1.2 m. I rarely like the intermediate units (1e1, 1e2, 1e-1, 1e-2), as they feel like bikeshedding.
- Laforet 8y ago
  It might look wrong in isolation, however the choice of unit do add context to a conversation. For example, there are instances where one would say "twenty hundred" instead of "two thousand". Sodium too is typically denoted in milligrams because most other micronutrients are measured in the same unit.

narag 8y ago

Terrible headaches.

seandougall 8y ago

In most cases, it feels like absolutely nothing. Above roughly 150 systolic, it can start to manifest as headaches (as others have mentioned), but doesn't always. In my case, after it had gone undiagnosed long enough (by an incompetent doctor), I had extremely severe headaches, constant nausea and vomiting, and vision problems that turned out to be capillary hemorrhages in my retinas. That was at around 240/120. BUT: I am extremely lucky to have had all those horrendous symptoms. They alerted me to the severity of the problem, and caused me to escalate to a competent doctor. For many people who get up to that level of blood pressure, the first (and potentially last) symptom is a stroke or a heart attack.