I've been avoiding taking a Blood Pressure medication for 3 years now. My average reading is 145/90
NOT good.
So I gave in and have begun taking 25mg Hydrochlorothiazide and Potassium. I am not fond of taking meds. But the thought of having a stroke or other major organ catastrophe is not encouraging.
I was told chronic pain increases BP; and I have chronic pain - nerve damage from back surgery 3 years ago.
So, if anyone has had real success with a more wholistic approach, please share it.
Thanks.

I am 51, female, with hypertension in the family. These factor in somehow.

Happy Sunday!
Megan

Hi Megan,
Have you looked at the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension)

http://dashdiet.org/

Cheers

Flaxseed is usually ok, but always inform the doctor because it's something that you're adding to your diet that's not typical and better to let the Dr know just as info. My husband is on high b.p. meds and it's fine ... he even takes the pills, not an issue but Drs do better the more informed they are.

Hi Megan,

I had high blood pressure that was uncontrolled even though I was taking 2 high BP meds (avergaed 165/95 on the 2 meds). 7 years ago, with my doctor's supervision, I lowered my blood pressure with the Zone diet and Dr. Sears Zone brand of ultra-refined fish oil concentrates. My high bp lowered to normal ranges and I was off both of the BP meds within just two weeks fo beginning the fish oil (the right type of fish oil is a vasodilator). I haven't needed bp meds since. My bp now averages 108/70. BTW, I'm 56 years old. You can learn more about it at zonediet.com

Good luck!

Taking blood pressure medicine is indeed not a long-term solution.

However, if you have stage 2 hypertension, normally you will need medications to help you control your condition.

Megan, your avg. reading 145/90 is still not so bad. Adopting a healthy living will help you. I am not sure whether you believe in "natural remedies". Some do, some don't and it's up to personal preference. I do.

Here's an article which may help you:
Natural Remedies For High Blood Pressure - 7 Effective Ways

To your health,
Alvin

I was diagnosed with anxiety depression about 12 years ago. I also take blood pressure medicine. For the depression I take PAXIL. If I had not taken my meds. I would probably be dead myself. Your friend needs most of all right now is someone who needs to listen and talk with them. Try to talk her into seeing a docter. It WILL be be hard but you have to be more than a friend right now. It is a very difficult time for her and she will rely on you to do alot for her. I love living now and cannot imagine life with out my meds. I would have missed out on way to much with out them.If you or your friend need someone to talk to I would be happy to help!

Hi Megan,
How is the blood pressure going?
A couple of questions are you overweight? Do you smoke? Do you consume more than the safe quantity of alcohol? Your reading of 145/90 was it achieved with assistance from medication or was this the pre-treatment reading? If this was pre-treatment I would have to agree with alvinhop, and suggest reduction should be achievable by natural methods. When you say blood pressure is in the family, you should do some investigative work on family members who have this condition to ensure it is truly a familial illness, often bad eating and lifestyle habits run in families also.

When I was 13 years of age (a long time ago) my father took a heart attack, he was only 41 years of age, I was told that high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes "run in the family", and I could expect a similar fate. I had just topped my class in the yearly exam, so I was reasonable bright and not prepared to accept testimonial style evidence, so I started to research my family tree. I found that no-one in the family had a clue about health, they were as thick as wharf planks.

The family members that succumbed to heart disease,strokes and high blood pressure all had some things in common.1.They smoked. 2. They ate a lot of meat. 3. They used salt excessively (back then people salted meat to preserve it because they did not have refrigerators), they literally piled it on their food. 4. They were type A personalities, impatient, bad tempered and anxious. 5. They were all extremely hard working people (sleeper cutters- for railways). Now I know a lot of knowledgable people would be cringing now and claiming that these traits are genetic, but I don't subscribe to this because I have seen these modified to such a degree they are non harmful.

Many things can influence our personality such as our level of education - frustrations and insecurities are much easier to deal with if you are capable of thoroughly understanding the problem. Learning to relax and learning to get along with people rather than punching their light out also tends to reduce frustrations and anxieties. My family members had no exercise plans, they all claimed that they got enough exercise from work.
I changed all of this for myself and family and at this point in time I have no health concerns and have outlived my father by 4 years.

If you really want to try some proven natural therapies you could try coenzyme Q10 - a meta- analysis was published last year in the Journal of Complementary Medicine 2007;6(4);11, 7(2):56-7
This analysis of 12 papers over 25 years (362 people) showed Q10 could reduce systolic pressure by 17mm and diastolic by 8mm. These effects are comparable with many of the currently used anti-hypertensive drugs. If you could achieve this result it would put you in the safe range.

Justin makes a lot of sense and written with unusual clarity. Don't muck around with hypertension if you can't get it to a safe level take treatment, but most of the time you will find hypertension (usually prefixed by the word essential- because they cannot find a cause) is a symptom of maladjustment- read Martin E.P. Seligman's comments on hypertension and treatment - he claims it is NOT a disease but a symptom.

I like your comments Justin and the way you have written it up, they are excellent, why don't you do it like this all of the time mate?

I hope I haven't bored you too much with this - there are other natural treatments available also such as Hawthorn with proven efficacy. It would be very interesting to know how you go with this Megan.

Another little trick that works is to purchase a blood pressure monitor and take a couple of daily readings, the bio-feed back helps you understand what is pushing your B.P. up and often you learn to control it by using this method.

Cheers and good luck.

Hi Megan,

Thanks for asking this question. A couple days ago my friend told me about a new site where you can ask any questions you have about wholelistic health and it will be answered by a practitioner or medical doctor for free. http://www.rvita.com/rvita-answers.html

hope this helps

Hi Readers,
I think any website that believes Iridology works has to be treated as suspect, and Ryvita promotes it, Exerter University Professor Edzard Ernst Department of Complementary Medicine and various other researchers have all condemned Iridology.

Scientific research into iridology

Well controlled scientific evaluation of iridology has shown entirely negative results, with all rigorous double blinded tests failing to find any statistical significance to its claims.

In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Simon et al.[9], 1979), three iridologists incorrectly identified kidney disease in photographs of irises and often disagreed with each other. The researchers concluded: "iridology was neither selective nor specific, and the likelihood of correct detection was statistically no better than chance."

Another study was published in the British Medical Journal (Knipschild[10], 1988). Paul Knipschild MD, of the University of Limburg in Maastricht, selected 39 patients who were due to have their gall bladder removed the following day, because of suspected gallstones. He also selected a group of people who did not have diseased gall bladders to act as a control. A group of 5 iridologists examined a series of slides of both groups irises. The iridologists were not able to identify correctly which patients had gall bladder problems and which had healthy gall bladders. For example one of iridologists diagnosed 49% of the patients with gall stones as having them and 51% as not having them. He diagnosed 51% of the control group as having gall bladder problems and 49% as not. Dr Knipschild concluded: "this study showed that iridology is not a useful diagnostic aid." Iridologists defended themselves and attacked the methodology of the study.

Edzard Ernst said in 2000: "Does iridology work? [...] This search strategy resulted in 77 publications on the subject of iridology. [...] All of the uncontrolled studies and several of the unmasked experiments suggested that iridology was a valid diagnostic tool. The discussion that follows refers to the 4 controlled, masked evaluations of the diagnostic validity of iridology. [...] In conclusion, few controlled studies with masked evaluation of diagnostic validity have been published. None have found any benefit from iridology."[6]

Regulation, licensure, and certification

In Canada and the United States, iridology is not regulated or licensed by any governmental agency. Numerous organizations offer certification courses.

References

1. ↑ Cline D; Hofstetter HW; Griffin JR. Dictionary of Visual Science. 4th ed. Butterworth-Heinemann, Boston 1997. ISBN 0-7506-9895-0
2. ↑ Jensen B; "Iridology Simplified". 2nd ed., Escondido 1980.
3. ↑ Waniek, D.A., Medical Hypotheses 1987;23(1): 309-312. PMID 3614020
4. ↑ Popescu, M.P.; Waniek D.A., Rev Chir Oncol Radiol O R L Oftalmol Stomatol Ser Oftalmol 1986;30(1): 29-33. PMID 2940632 (in Romanian)
5. ↑ Iridology Is Nonsense, a web page with further references
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Ernst E. Iridology: not useful and potentially harmful. Arch. Ophthalmol. 2000 Jan;118(1):120-1. PMID 10636425
7. ↑ Inside Iris Recognition
8. ↑ Iris Recognition
9. ↑ Simon A., Worthen D.M., Mitas JA 2nd. An evaluation of iridology. JAMA. 1979 Sep 8;242(13):1385-9. PMID 480560
10. ↑ Knipschild P. Looking for gall bladder disease in the patient's iris. BMJ. 1988 Dec 17;297(6663):15

Cheers

Hey John,
Im very surprised you would be passing other diet plans out and not touting a true lifestyle change and a nutrition process with a true focus on health like getyourleanon.com. Long time no hear buddy, how are thing for you?....Yours truly....Tony

Hi Tony,
Winter in Australia is not a good time to be in a clinic such as this,it slows right down but it gives me a lot of time to read research and write posts. Physically and mentally ( unless you listen to my wife) I am going fine.

I am almost over some severe, very painful muscle problems, 3 hamstrings,gastrocnemius, tibialis anterior, soleus, and extensor digitorum longus all on the right leg formed myofascial trigger points at the same time, and this has slowed me down a fair bit, no race walking, jogging or throwing karate kicks for the winter, which is extremely hard for a Shihan (5thDan), I am almost back to normal now, my foot is still "slapping" as I walk but nowhere near as bad.

Where have you been, have you got a note from your parents? I've been reading all the obituary columns but couldn't find you anywhere. Really good to see you back.

Cheers