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I have High Blood Pressure. 140/100 when non-medicated during the office day. 110/85-90, medicated and relaxed. Having this since 25 (37 now), my genetics sadly

I have High Blood Pressure. 140/100 when non-medicated during the office day. 110/85-90, medicated and relaxed. Having this since 25 (37 now), my genetics sadly puts a cap on my life expectancy (all other vitals normal, HBP runs in family). All this to say, I hate measuring my BP and follow this space closely. It's a chore that takes minimum 10 minutes twice a day and I have to largely stop what I'm doing. I would give so much to a device that could measure my BP as easily as O2, but this device is not it. That picture does not inspire confidence. All the current "continuous" measurement devices are bulky and inaccurate compared to their larger non-"continuous" counterparts. One day I hope the apple watch can do it, but given the physics of BP doesn't seem realistic.

wikibob 6y ago
Just curious, no offense intended: what is your level of fitness and BMI?
- irjustin 6y ago
  None at all. Being ~5'9" & 135 lbs, my back-of-the-napkin BMI is ~20. Fitness is pretty low these days given COVID, but I used to be quite fit (former Fitness company). That didn't really move my BP much. My biggest levers for BP are salt intake and work stress. Currently a co-founder so work stress is rather high handled with a bit of mitigation practices like meditation, but definitely not enough. Overall I'm on borrowed time of sorts and do my best to be thankful for each day... doesn't always come through.
  - ggm 6y ago
    140/100 isn't going to call time on you tomorrow. There are people on that who go rolling along for years. I'm sure neither you nor your GP like this rating but its important not to catastrophise. If you have some specific co-morbidity that might be different: e.g. leaky blood vessels in the brain or atherosclerosis. Not a GP, not giving advice.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
      Unfortunately hypertension can cause great damage if left untreated for a long time: kidney disease and heart disease most obviously but from my understanding, any organ that has blood vessels can be affected and damaged, including brain, eyes, liver, lungs... The OP is not catastrophising, but trying to be pragmatic (although I hope that with treatment they will be able to live as long as they would have without the hypertension).
      - ggm 6y ago
        As a hypertension sufferer I know the harm it can cause but as a 140/100 for over twenty five years aged 59 with intermittent treatment, I'm struggling with the idea it's an imminent problem in and of itself compared to eg untreated 160/120 or worse. Reading around, health standards vary by economy. Maybe australia has a different cutoff bp to the USA. The nih say you need five visits to be assessed on 140/100. Many people with hypertension have comorbidities. Diabetes for instance, which also causes neuropathy. Is it ideal? No. Far from it. I wish I could get mine lower. I see my health professional regularly, I am taking my prescribed medication, and I exercise. I have had no signal that I am facing imminent demise. Far from it. That's all I meant really: if there is no other problem, I think treated 140/100 could be sustained for some time.
        YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
        Reading the OP's comment again, they did not talk of an "imminent demise". They said that their genetics "puts a cap" on their "life expectancy". Hence my own comment about hypertension causing damage if left untreated "for a long time".
  - russholmes 6y ago
    A significant minority are quite sensitive to salt. I fixed my high blood pressure by reducing salt intake. I got it down to hunter-gather levels - less than 1 g per day and combined with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables for potassium. It took a week before I started to notice my BP falling. Came down from 135/85 to 115/70 over a period of 12 weeks. Also cut out alcohol, anything more than a glass of wine raises my BP for a day or so afterwards. Of course, you can't eat any pre-prepared food this way as it has way too much salt. No bread, cheese, butter etc. Food begins to taste much better after a couple of weeks on a low salt diet as salt dulls the sense of taste.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
      Can confirm. I cook a salt-free cuisine for my relative [1] who has kidney disease and must aggressively control their blood pressure and I can go entire months without eating anything with any salt at all. There was a bit of an adjustment to be had in the first few months, from what I recall, but I was surprised to what degree my taste buds adjusted after a while. Nowadays, I can't enjoy normally salted food because it registers as very salty. I have particular trouble with cheeses, even cheese like feta or camembert that only have about 1.5 - 2% salt. Speaking of cheese and bread, most of the internet will say it's impossible, but I've found some evidence online (reddit threads and blog posts and the like) of people who actually make both bread and cheese without salt at all (because of hypertension) and they seemed to be doing fine. This was about half a year ago so I can't find the sources again, but in any case salt-free cheese and bread making is possible. I've made a few loaves of bread without salt myself and they're OK, though they taste a lot better when they're made wth sourdough (which is a pain to maintain) rather than dried yeast, because the sourdough adds taste and the dried yeast only air! What's the problem with butter? I can find both salt-free and salt-full in most countries in the EU that I've visited. _______ [1] well... I cook for the entire household :)
      - russholmes 6y ago
        Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough for butter. I was mainly using it for cooking and ended up using olive oil for most things. I used to have a bread machine, and bread seemed to bake just fine without salt. Store bought bread without salt was impossible to find.
Buttons840 6y ago
> genetics sadly puts a cap on my life expectancy As it does all of us. My BP monitor takes 3 reading and reports the average and takes about 2 minutes to do this. What are you doing that takes so long?
- irjustin 6y ago
  I do my best to wait 5 minutes before taking the first reading and 2-3 minutes in-between readings
riffraff 6y ago
> It's a chore that takes minimum 10 minutes twice a day 10 minutes sounds like a lot, I have a pretty common OMRON automatic pressure measuring device[0], and it takes about a minute to do the actual measuring, plus, say, another two to take off my sweater and put it back on. I suppose I am missing something, how come it takes much longer for you? EDIT: have you tried meditation? As a fellow person with genetic disposition for HBP, it was somewhat helpful for me, when I could do it regularly. [0] something like this, but older https://omronhealthcare.com/products/5-series-wireless-upper-arm-blood-pressure-monitor-bp7250/ https://omronhealthcare.com/products/5-series-wireless-upper...
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
  >> I suppose I am missing something, how come it takes much longer for you? Not the OP, but at a guess (one of my relatives has kidney disease and take their blood pressure twice a day every day), it takes about 5' to relax, then another 5' to take two readings and combine the results. My relative takes three readings and keeps the last. From my understanding this is common with electronic devices, where the measured BP changes between readings. Again from my relative's experience (I helped them with a bit of code to keep track of their BP and plot it etc) the trend is usually monotonic, i.e. either it starts low and goes up a bit, or it starts high and goes down a bit. Sometimes more than "a bit", like from 130/80 to 120/70 (i.e. from hypertensive to normotensive range), etc. Manual sphygmomanometers don't seem to have the same variance in their readings. From my understanding, the digital devices have some kind of model that estimates BP from the readings of an oscillometric sensor and are less accurate than the hand-operated ones. The table-top mercury ones are the most reliable of the bunch. And as to finger-cuff devices, you might as well read tea leaves.
  - riffraff 6y ago
    ah, that makes sense, thank you. I used to take multiple readings too, but then concluded it was somewhat pointless: my measurements seem to be pretty consistent, and I would only be alerted when I noticed a shift over multiple days, but I understand how this can vary by person.
tzs 6y ago
Have you looked at wrist blood pressure meters? Mine takes about 30 seconds. Wrist usually gives a higher reading than upper arm, but if you use both for a while to get a good idea of what is good on the wrist one you should be able to do most of your daily monitoring by wrist, only needing to do arm when wrist is unexpectedly off.
inglor_cz 6y ago
I got rid of HBP by intermittent fasting, but if your BMI is 20, that is not a method suitable for you.
fmajid 6y ago
Expensive, but have you seen this? https://omronhealthcare.com/products/heartguide-wearable-blood-pressure-monitor-bp8000m/ https://omronhealthcare.com/products/heartguide-wearable-blo...

wikibob 6y ago

Just curious, no offense intended: what is your level of fitness and BMI?

irjustin 6y ago
None at all. Being ~5'9" & 135 lbs, my back-of-the-napkin BMI is ~20. Fitness is pretty low these days given COVID, but I used to be quite fit (former Fitness company). That didn't really move my BP much. My biggest levers for BP are salt intake and work stress. Currently a co-founder so work stress is rather high handled with a bit of mitigation practices like meditation, but definitely not enough. Overall I'm on borrowed time of sorts and do my best to be thankful for each day... doesn't always come through.
- ggm 6y ago
  140/100 isn't going to call time on you tomorrow. There are people on that who go rolling along for years. I'm sure neither you nor your GP like this rating but its important not to catastrophise. If you have some specific co-morbidity that might be different: e.g. leaky blood vessels in the brain or atherosclerosis. Not a GP, not giving advice.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
    Unfortunately hypertension can cause great damage if left untreated for a long time: kidney disease and heart disease most obviously but from my understanding, any organ that has blood vessels can be affected and damaged, including brain, eyes, liver, lungs... The OP is not catastrophising, but trying to be pragmatic (although I hope that with treatment they will be able to live as long as they would have without the hypertension).
    - ggm 6y ago
      As a hypertension sufferer I know the harm it can cause but as a 140/100 for over twenty five years aged 59 with intermittent treatment, I'm struggling with the idea it's an imminent problem in and of itself compared to eg untreated 160/120 or worse. Reading around, health standards vary by economy. Maybe australia has a different cutoff bp to the USA. The nih say you need five visits to be assessed on 140/100. Many people with hypertension have comorbidities. Diabetes for instance, which also causes neuropathy. Is it ideal? No. Far from it. I wish I could get mine lower. I see my health professional regularly, I am taking my prescribed medication, and I exercise. I have had no signal that I am facing imminent demise. Far from it. That's all I meant really: if there is no other problem, I think treated 140/100 could be sustained for some time.
      - YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
        Reading the OP's comment again, they did not talk of an "imminent demise". They said that their genetics "puts a cap" on their "life expectancy". Hence my own comment about hypertension causing damage if left untreated "for a long time".
- russholmes 6y ago
  A significant minority are quite sensitive to salt. I fixed my high blood pressure by reducing salt intake. I got it down to hunter-gather levels - less than 1 g per day and combined with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables for potassium. It took a week before I started to notice my BP falling. Came down from 135/85 to 115/70 over a period of 12 weeks. Also cut out alcohol, anything more than a glass of wine raises my BP for a day or so afterwards. Of course, you can't eat any pre-prepared food this way as it has way too much salt. No bread, cheese, butter etc. Food begins to taste much better after a couple of weeks on a low salt diet as salt dulls the sense of taste.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
    Can confirm. I cook a salt-free cuisine for my relative [1] who has kidney disease and must aggressively control their blood pressure and I can go entire months without eating anything with any salt at all. There was a bit of an adjustment to be had in the first few months, from what I recall, but I was surprised to what degree my taste buds adjusted after a while. Nowadays, I can't enjoy normally salted food because it registers as very salty. I have particular trouble with cheeses, even cheese like feta or camembert that only have about 1.5 - 2% salt. Speaking of cheese and bread, most of the internet will say it's impossible, but I've found some evidence online (reddit threads and blog posts and the like) of people who actually make both bread and cheese without salt at all (because of hypertension) and they seemed to be doing fine. This was about half a year ago so I can't find the sources again, but in any case salt-free cheese and bread making is possible. I've made a few loaves of bread without salt myself and they're OK, though they taste a lot better when they're made wth sourdough (which is a pain to maintain) rather than dried yeast, because the sourdough adds taste and the dried yeast only air! What's the problem with butter? I can find both salt-free and salt-full in most countries in the EU that I've visited. _______ [1] well... I cook for the entire household :)
    - russholmes 6y ago
      Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough for butter. I was mainly using it for cooking and ended up using olive oil for most things. I used to have a bread machine, and bread seemed to bake just fine without salt. Store bought bread without salt was impossible to find.

Buttons840 6y ago

> genetics sadly puts a cap on my life expectancy As it does all of us. My BP monitor takes 3 reading and reports the average and takes about 2 minutes to do this. What are you doing that takes so long?

irjustin 6y ago
I do my best to wait 5 minutes before taking the first reading and 2-3 minutes in-between readings

riffraff 6y ago

> It's a chore that takes minimum 10 minutes twice a day 10 minutes sounds like a lot, I have a pretty common OMRON automatic pressure measuring device[0], and it takes about a minute to do the actual measuring, plus, say, another two to take off my sweater and put it back on. I suppose I am missing something, how come it takes much longer for you? EDIT: have you tried meditation? As a fellow person with genetic disposition for HBP, it was somewhat helpful for me, when I could do it regularly. [0] something like this, but older https://omronhealthcare.com/products/5-series-wireless-upper-arm-blood-pressure-monitor-bp7250/ https://omronhealthcare.com/products/5-series-wireless-upper...

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
>> I suppose I am missing something, how come it takes much longer for you? Not the OP, but at a guess (one of my relatives has kidney disease and take their blood pressure twice a day every day), it takes about 5' to relax, then another 5' to take two readings and combine the results. My relative takes three readings and keeps the last. From my understanding this is common with electronic devices, where the measured BP changes between readings. Again from my relative's experience (I helped them with a bit of code to keep track of their BP and plot it etc) the trend is usually monotonic, i.e. either it starts low and goes up a bit, or it starts high and goes down a bit. Sometimes more than "a bit", like from 130/80 to 120/70 (i.e. from hypertensive to normotensive range), etc. Manual sphygmomanometers don't seem to have the same variance in their readings. From my understanding, the digital devices have some kind of model that estimates BP from the readings of an oscillometric sensor and are less accurate than the hand-operated ones. The table-top mercury ones are the most reliable of the bunch. And as to finger-cuff devices, you might as well read tea leaves.
- riffraff 6y ago
  ah, that makes sense, thank you. I used to take multiple readings too, but then concluded it was somewhat pointless: my measurements seem to be pretty consistent, and I would only be alerted when I noticed a shift over multiple days, but I understand how this can vary by person.

tzs 6y ago

Have you looked at wrist blood pressure meters? Mine takes about 30 seconds. Wrist usually gives a higher reading than upper arm, but if you use both for a while to get a good idea of what is good on the wrist one you should be able to do most of your daily monitoring by wrist, only needing to do arm when wrist is unexpectedly off.

inglor_cz 6y ago

I got rid of HBP by intermittent fasting, but if your BMI is 20, that is not a method suitable for you.

fmajid 6y ago

Expensive, but have you seen this? https://omronhealthcare.com/products/heartguide-wearable-blood-pressure-monitor-bp8000m/ https://omronhealthcare.com/products/heartguide-wearable-blo...