Too young for high blood pressure by Simply Starla
As I go through my daily routine, I almost forgot “the pill”. Realizing that I have goals to achieve, a family to take care of, I go to my purse and reluctantly pull out my prescription for hydrochlorothiazide, all while asking myself, ‘why’? Why at age 30, am I stuck in the daily routine of taking blood pressure medicine? Taking a water pill? Medicating myself when I could change my health routine and not enslave myself with pharmaceutical torture?
It isn’t that I don’t know any better. In fact, I have spent the last 5 years of my life preaching health & wellness messages to my expanded network and even strangers. So sadly, I know better but am not doing any better. I have let myself get into a rut – let myself go and hope to miraculously not have to take medicine for a medical condition that I should not have at this point in my life.
I, like nearly 1 in 4 American adults, am battling with hypertension aka High blood pressure. According to Yahoo! Health, blood pressure is a measure of how hard the blood pushes against the walls of your arteries as it moves through your body. It’s normal for blood pressure to go up and down throughout the day, but if it stays up, you have high blood pressure. When blood pressure is high, it starts to damage the blood vessels, heart, and kidneys. This can lead to heart attack, stroke, and other problems. High blood pressure is called a “silent killer,” because it doesn’t usually cause symptoms while it is causing this damage.
Your blood pressure consists of two numbers: systolic and diastolic. Someone with a systolic pressure of 120 and a diastolic pressure of 80 has a blood pressure of 120/80, or “120 over 80.”
o The systolic number shows how hard the blood pushes when the heart is pumping.
o The diastolic number shows how hard the blood pushes between heartbeats, when the heart is relaxed and filling with blood.
Adults should have a blood pressure of less than 120/80. High blood pressure is 140/90 or higher. Many people fall into the category in between, called prehypertension.
While it is something that too many people deal with, it is something that I should not be a victim of at age 30. So I am asking myself – how did I let my health go? Let’s see: eating too much crap, not working out as consistently as I should, STRESSING out – need I go on? What’s worse is that I thought I had a unique situation. There couldn’t possibly be that many people under 40 with my same problem. WRONG!!! I don’t have scientific facts but I know at LEAST 8 other people that have/had problems with high blood pressure before the age of 40. One of them is my uncle, who after years of neglecting the hypertension, now has kidney failure and is subject to dialysis 3 times per week at age 45!
So what?
Well, I want other young brothas and sistas (people in general) to commit to taking care of themselves. I am not saying you have to be a health nut, but you do need to make sure you do the basics to prevent this disease and all the others that are preventable and are not supposed to be issues we have “with age”.
- Educate yourself – research this and other diseases that are preventable so you are proactive. I have never (and can’t say that I ever will) found satisfaction with taking doctor’s orders.
- Do something – ANYTHING that will help you live a healthier lifestyle
- Take the stairs instead of the elevator,
- Walk for 30 minutes at least 3 – 5 times per week,
- Bake not fry,
- Limit salt intake
- Home-made not fast food, and
- Yoga or mediation instead of worry and emotional explosion.
For the record, this is NOT a substitution for seeking medical treatment, but serves as suggestions and reminders for what we should be doing in our daily routines.
You are definitely not alone in this. I’ve been taking medication for blood pressure since I was 20…. yes TWENTY, and now at 30 I’m on 2 different daily medications. I developed high blood pressure when I was pregnant with my second child, and it just never went away. In my situation (and I’m sure in many others’), I have to also factor in genetic predisposition…. both my parents have hypertension (and when I was doing a study at IUPUI the doctor jokingly told me “High blood pressure is genetic; you get it from your kids.”) Even when I was in my health prime (around 22 or 23) I was STILL on medication. So sometimes it’s just in the genes, but I agree that healthy lifestyle is extremely important, especially in cases where you’ve already working from a disadvantage genetically as many of our people are.
Yes – it could very well be my genes – my mom has it – my dad died from it – BUT – I also know people that after 15/20 year of taking medication are now liberated from the pharmeceutical pimps. They now use natural remedies – like natural supplements that ACTUALLY WORK and “good” habits to combast the dis-ease!
I am sad to hear that there are other women that are dealing with this – but so excited that we are preparing to lauch Charly Magazine to shed some real light on the real issues that women face daily!