Blood Pressure Self Diagnosis
The most common medical diagnosis is hypertension. That will affect about 1 in 3 adults in the U.S.A doctor doesn't have to get very far in his or her practice to encounter high blood pressure.
High blood pressure was first recognized by health practitioners dating back about 3000 years. The diagnosis then was call hard pulse disease. Many writings refer to what we call hypertension today with a variety of approaches to try to control the disorder.
We know that FDR died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. His doctor said it came out of nowhere even though he had been diagnosed as hypertensive for many years.
Attempts to Control Blood Pressure
Like most diseases, scientific breakthroughs, especially in the 20th Century in all fields helped doctors understand the body better and gave us a much better understanding of hypertension and its consequences. We have seen a wide variety of new attempts by the pharmaceutical industry to help control blood pressure. Other disciplines have worked on blood pressure with varied treatments all with some level of success. The most surprising to us today is the attempt at using surgery to control blood pressure.
Meds Might Work but Have Fair Number of Negative Effects
The most popular approach to blood pressure control remains drug therapy. This would just fine and dandy if weren't for the long list of negative effects many of which are worse than the high blood pressure itself.
Self-Diagnosis and Treatment Idea
One novel way to approach high blood pressure is with dietary self-diagnosis and self- treatment. Now that we have very economical and relatively accurate home blood pressure monitors, a person can keep tabs on their own condition without an appointment and trip to the doctor's office and of course, no co-pay.
Not For Every Case
First I should say that not every person with a food sensitivity is going to have a pulse or blood pressure reaction. The body's responses to food sensitivities are complex. We are looking for those particular reactions that affect the central nervous system in such a way that heart rate and/or blood pressure increase as a sign of stress.
Pulse Oximeters Are Nearly Ubiquitous
I have mentioned the pulse test and it has been used for decades to help determine which foods you might cause a negative reaction. To understand that, do an internet search. You will find lots of links at your disposal to explain that. Checking your pulse is easy with an inexpensive pulse oximeter that every house should have anyway. You can take this a little further with a blood pressure check with your home blood pressure monitor to get information about your body.
I mention the pulse test because sometimes the pulse is a better indicator and sometimes the blood pressure is. You will have to keep track of both to see what works best for you for that particular food.
You can approach blood pressure changes from two different points of view. One will be to use antibody or other tests to find out what you are reacting to and eliminate that food and see what happens to your blood pressure over time. A good example of this is gluten. Some studies have indicated that gluten sensitive people with hypertension tend to normalize their blood pressure within about six months. We recommend Cyrex, Enterolaband/or Alcat testing to help you figure out which foods you should start testing. These tests use different ways of testing so each will give a little different information.
Another way is to go through foods one at a time to see what the reaction is over the next several hours. For example you might avoid eggs for a few days and then have eggs for breakfast and the monitor your blood pressure (and pulse while you are at it) periodically over the next several hours. As soon as you see a significant increase, you have your answer. If your baseline blood pressure is 130/86, for example and the next time you check it after the egg breakfast it is 144/92, your body has told you that the stress level has increased since the last reading. In this case eggs could be contributing to your hypertension among other things.
If you are one of those people who deals with hypertension, I encourage you to take a new look at your diet. Your blood pressure monitor is no longer just telling you something is wrong but can now help you determine causes and help you track your health progress.
While you are sorting this out, you might find that some supplements are helpful at controlling the stress that shows up as high blood pressure. Thorne Perfusia has been used successfully by many. Of course, you want to make sure you are keeping your stress at a minimum and managing your cortisol levels. BetterGenix AdrenalGenix can be helpful for that. I have found that Now Blood Pressure Health and Himalaya Immunocare taken once a day each has had benefit my own blood pressure in this 70-year-old body.
As much as we like using supplements to move your health picture in the right direction, we encourage you to use your pulse and blood pressure as diagnostic tools to find offending agents so you can be your best.
