Blood Pressure
High Blood Pressure is when the blood pressure is consistantly elevated. It is sometimes referred to as the 'Silent Killer' as it has no classic signs or symptoms, therefore without a Blood Pressure Check it is almost impossible to detect.
Symptoms are only noticable when blood pressure is very high, where the patient may feel a constant headache, dizziness, feeling faint, blurred vision, feeling flushed or general fatigue.
Uncontrolled high blood pressure (also referred to as hypertension) can lead to complications such as:
Blood Pressure should be ideally 120/80 where 120 refers to the Systolic reading and the 80 refers to Diastolic reading. If the top number (Systolic) is consistantly over 140, or the bottom number (Diastolic) is consistantly over 90 then you may have High Blood Pressure.
There is no single cause for High Blood Pressure, but contributary factors are:
- Increased amount of salt in the diet
- Increased intake of alcohol
- Age - Increased age naturally increases blood pressure
- Ethinic origin - African/Caribbean and South Asian communities have greater risk
Royal Docks Pharmacy provides free Blood Pressure Checks to diagnose, confirm or as a maintenance check for High Blood Pressure.
The test takes no longer than 10 minutes and provides the consumer with a printed sheet of the results as well as a breakdown of what the numbers mean.