YOUR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE AND YOU

When you get to a doctor and he tells you that you have high blood pressure, what he means is that the force your blood is exerting against the walls of your arteries is so high that it may eventually cause health problems for you including heart disease and stroke. Usually, when your doctor tells you that you have high blood pressure, he is not wishing you ill. And he is not making a prophecy about what may happen to you in future if you do not pay your tithes. He is telling you what is already happening, so that you can take steps toward controlling the event. Simply “rejecting” what your doctor has said by faith in the name and by the blood of Jesus will probably not be enough.

You can have high blood pressure (hypertension) for years without any symptoms. Sadly, the absence of symptoms does not mean that you are safe; on the contrary, if your blood pressure is high, damage to your blood vessels and your heart will begin and progressively worsen, eventually increasing your risk of developing serious health problems, including heart attack and stroke. It can also interfere with your ability to think, to remember, and to learn.

A lot of people think high blood pressure is a phenomenon that affects elderly people – and with good reason. But we have increasingly noted high blood pressures in young people, including in children as little as eight years old. Therefore, we advise that young people within the age bracket of eight to 39 years should get at least one blood pressure reading a year. Those 40 years and older should get a blood pressure reading every six months.

So what causes high blood pressure?

In many cases, we do not know what causes high blood pressure. In a few cases, however, the cause may be identifiable – and so perhaps treatable. Some of those identifiable causes of (a relative minority of cases of) high blood pressure include problems with the kidneys, thyroid gland, some medications including contraceptives, and substances like cocaine and alcohol.

Not everyone who uses alcohol or takes birth control pills develops high blood pressure. Fact is, apart from these possible causes of elevated blood pressure, there are certain factors that, if present, can increase your chances of developing high blood pressure. Some of them include:

Age: The older you get, the greater your risk of developing hypertension.

Race: If you are black, you are at greater risk for hypertension than if you are white, yellow, Arab, or (possibly) an alien.

Family history: If someone in your family is/was hypertensive, you are more likely than not to be hypertensive.

Weight: The bigger you are, the bigger your chances are of developing hypertension.

Sedentary lifestyle: The less physically active you are, the less your chances of good health and the greater your chances of developing high blood pressure.

Tobacco: Whether you smoke the tobacco directly, or you stay around in company of smoking folks and thereby inhale the fumes they exhale, you are at greater risk for hypertension than someone who has never encountered tobacco in his life.

Alcohol: The more the pints of alcohol you consume daily, the higher your risk of being someday labelled hypertensive.

Stress: High levels of stress can temporarily increase your blood pressure.

Pregnancy: Some women develop high blood pressure when pregnant. This may disappear several weeks after childbirth.

If you are diagnosed with high blood pressure, your doctor may advice lifestyle changes, changes to your diet, and in some cases the commencement of antihypertensive medications.

This is not the time to turn to your pastor and begin the profession of “believing God” that this is “not my portion”. It is the time to carefully follow your doctor’s advice. For sure, you can ask your pastor to pray for you, but you also need to realize that at some point in Jesus’ life, rather than just command miracles with the power of his spoken word, he spat on the floor, bent and made a paste out of the mixture of spittle and clay and took the mixture and applied it to a blind man’s eyes.

So if you are placed on medications, take the medications as you have been requested to. And do not arbitrarily stop taking the medications if you eventually check your blood pressure and get normal values. If you get normal values, it is more likely because the drugs are keeping them normal than because you have achieved a permanent cure.

Note that if you do not take your medications exactly as you have been requested to, your blood pressure and your health may pay the price. Not your doctor. Not your pastor.

In addition to faithfully adhering to your drug schedule, eat healthy foods, decrease the amount of salt you have in your diet, maintain a healthy weight, and increase your physical exercise. Also limit your alcohol intake, discontinue smoking altogether, reduce stress as much as possible, and monitor your blood pressure at home. If you are pregnant, register for antenatal care at a hospital, not at Mama Eliza’s shop, where she will tell you – as she smokes her dried fish – how her own pregnancy of 40 years ago went, and expect that your will follow the same template.

Very importantly too, keep your appointments with your doctor. That may be the difference between a long life and a sudden death – or descent to a life of a poor vegetable.