Blood Pressure Explained
Blood pressure is the pressure of blood in your arteries. Your arteries are the vessels (tubes) that carry blood from your heart to your brain and the rest of your body. You need a certain amount of pressure to get the blood moving around your body.
Your blood pressure naturally goes up and down throughout the day and night, and it’s normal for it to go up while you’re moving about. It’s when your overall blood pressure is always high, even when you are resting, that you need to do something about it.
Blood pressure is measured using two numbers:
Systolic pressure: this is the higher of the two numbers. It’s the pressure against your arteries when your heart is pumping blood around your body.
Diastolic pressure: this is the lower of the two numbers. It shows how much pressure is in your arteries when your heart relaxes between beats.High Blood Pressure
The medical term for high blood pressure is ‘hypertension’, and it means your blood pressure is always too high. This means your heart is working harder when pumping blood around your body. If you suffer from hypertension you will need to speak to a clinician. BP can be lowered by lifestyle changes but sometimes medication is required.
Your arteries are normally stretchy, so they can cope with your blood pressure going up and down. But with high blood pressure, your arteries lose their stretchiness, becoming stiff or narrow. This narrowing makes it easier for fatty material to build up which can trigger a life-threatening heart attack or stroke. Untreated it can also lead to kidney failure, vascular dementia, heart failure and sight issues.Blood Pressure Readings
From time to time we ask our patients to provide a Blood Pressure reading. If the reading is out of range, we will ask you to keep a dairy. We have a team of highly experienced pharmacists who have additional qualifications in hypertension management, that will be able to support our patients.
Introducing Florence or “Flo” for short.
We are delighted to offer our patients with high blood pressure an opportunity to use Florence – a totally free automated text messaging system to send in your BP readings and receive tips and tricks to help manage at home.
To find out more, please click on the link below:
How does Florence work?