Essential Information on Blood Pressure Medications
Read the article to find out more about how you can prevent hypertension, how to measure and understand blood pressure, and what medications you can buy for arterial pressure management to reduce the risk of premature death.
What influences arterial and vessels pressure?
The blood pressure depends on:
- The ability of the heart muscle to contract with required frequency and throw enough blood into the veins and arteries;
- Blood density. The denser the blood is, the harder it is for it to flow through small vessels.
- The elasticity of the blood vessels. With age, the blood vessels become stronger and dense which is why blood pressure increases in older age. The elasticity of the blood vessels also can be influenced by certain conditions including atherosclerosis.
- Hormonal imbalance and stress also contribute to the negative alterations in the blood vessels structure. This is why high blood pressure frequently occurs in pregnant women and during menopause.
Risk factors that contribute to the hypertension development include: smoking, consumption of alcohol, lack of exercising, poor diet (especially rich in high cholesterol), excessive weight, excessive consumption of salt, stress, kidney disease, and others.
Worth noting, some people can be predisposed to the condition development due to genetics, especially, if they have a family history of hypertension.
Symptoms of high blood pressure
Unluckily, hypertension is rarely accompanied by symptoms unless it is an acute increase of the blood pressure. However, some of the symptoms that may indicate that you have elevated arterial pressure are headaches, dizziness, and feeling of pressure in the eyes.
Diagnosis of hypertension
You should think about consulting your doctor if you have a family history of hypertension or heart diseases even if you don’t suffer from any symptoms but have already reached the age of 40 or 50. The diagnosis is made based on the monitoring of blood pressure several times a day at home, electrocardiogram, and based on the patient survey.
Before sending you to make electrocardiogram, your doctor will ask you about your health history, symptoms that you currently have, whether you have relatives who suffer from hypertension or heart diseases or not, if you have bad habits such as smoking, alcohol consumption, increased intake of products rich in bad cholesterol, and so on. Then a physical examination should follow. It includes, first of, all heart examination with the use of phonendoscope. This method allows to identify noise in the heart, changes in characteristic tones (amplification or, conversely, weakening), as well as the appearance of untypical sounds.
How to measure arterial pressure without going to a hospital?
In order to find out whether your blood pressure is within a normal range or not, you should measure it. If you have family history of hypertension, you should consider getting a blood pressure meter and measure your arterial pressure 2 times a day.
Blood pressure meter or blood pressure monitor is a device that can be bought at any drugstore for home use. It allows measuring blood pressure in just a few minutes. It shows systolic and diastolic pressure. Systolic is a blood pressure that occurs in the vessels during a heartbeat, it is a maximum pressure. Diastolic is the pressure in the vessels between the heartbeats, it is a minimum pressure.
In order to measure blood pressure at home, you need to measure it at rest, i.e. when you are sitting, it is better to sit for 5-10 minutes before you start the measurement. Make sure your left arm rests at a heart level on the table. Find your pulse between the shoulder and your elbow and put the cuff there. Secure it. Put the stethoscope in your ears. Squeeze the bulb to inflate the cuff by the other hand. Inflate the cuff until the meter shows 30, then slowly open the gauge and let the air out. When you inflate the cuff, you won’t hear heartbeats in the stethoscope; you can hear them only when the cuff starts to deflate. Watch the meter arrow attentively and remember the number you saw when you heard the first heartbeat, it is a systolic pressure. Now wait till the sound fades continuing to slowly deflate the cuff, once the sound of the beat is gone, remember the number on the gauge - it is would be diastolic pressure.
This process may seem complicated if you have never measure blood pressure before. But do not worry in a couple of tries you will be able to do it without any trouble. However, you can opt for a digital meter that is much easier to use but note that manual meters are more precise.
What blood pressure is considered normal?
Normal blood pressure depends on the age of a person:
- For children aged less than 15 years, the normal systolic blood pressure is from 80 to 120 millimeters of mercury and between 50 and 80 millimeters of mercury for diastolic pressure. The numbers above the upper bound are considered dangerous.
- For teenagers and adults between 16 and 29 the normal systolic blood pressure is from 90 to 130 millimeters of mercury and between 60 and 85 millimeters of mercury for diastolic. The numbers above the upper bound are considered dangerous.
- For adults aged 30-39, the standard systolic pressure is from 90 to 130 mm of mercury and between 60 and 90 mm of mercury for diastolic. The numbers higher than the upper bound are considered dangerous.
- For adults aged 40-59, the standard systolic blood pressure is from 90 to 140 mm of mercury and between 60 and 90 mm of mercury for diastolic. The numbers above the upper bound are considered dangerous.
- For people over 60, the healthy systolic pressure is from 100 to 150 mm of mercury and between 60 and 90 mm of mercury for diastolic. The numbers above the upper bound are considered dangerous.
What hypertension can lead to?
Uncontrolled and untreated arterial pressure can contribute to the development of a variety of complications such as stroke, heart attack, myocardial infarction, aneurism, coronary artery disease, heart failure, dementia, kidney failure, vision impairment or even loss, sexual dysfunction, anxiety and others.
What drugs are used for the condition?
There is a wide range of preparations used to lower the blood pressure. There are in general several groups of medications used for blood pressure lowering:
- Diuretics
A) Loop
B) Thiazide and thiazide-like
C) Potassium-sparing
D) Inhibitors of carbonic anhydrase
- Adrenergic receptor antagonists
A) Alpha blockers
B) Beta-blockers
C) Alpha- and beta-blockers
- Adrenergic receptor agonists
A) Alpha2-agonists
- Calcium channel blockers
- Angiotensin-conversing enzyme inhibitors
- Angiotensin-2 receptor antagonists
- Antagonists of aldosterone
- Vasodilators
- Adrenergics of central action or stimulants of alpha-receptors in the brain
- Direct inhibitors of renin
Worth noting that certain medications are also used in other conditions, for example, heart failure, as a prophylaxis of heart attacks, myocardial infarction, nephropathy, and others.
Where to buy drugs to treat blood pressure?
Antihypertensive drugs are sold at all pharmacies. However, in the U.S. they are released only with a prescription. Considering that such drugs require a life-long intake in some cases, it can be quite costly to go for a new prescription every time you need a refill. Moreover, in the U.S. all medications are quite overpriced. To save your money without compromising the quality of the treatment, you can buy medications to treat high blood pressure at our online pharmacy. We sell both brand and generic medications that are the same as the brand drugs but cost cheaper.