Chinese New Year festival, friends and family reunions are rare, and during the long holiday inevitably get together, drinking, staying up late, playing cards and other activities, it is easy to overeat, sleep deprivation, emotional agitation and other phenomena, the author based on years of clinical experience recommend the following precautions.
Hypertensive disease is a major disease that endangers people’s health. Our recently published survey results show that cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases rank first in all deaths, accounting for 44,4% of the total mortality. The first risk factor for total death is hypertension.
The cause of hypertension is not yet clear, except for genetics, long-term mental stress and atherosclerosis, overweight, high salt diet and moderate alcohol consumption are internationally recognized risk factors for the development of hypertension, and attention to these factors can help prevent hypertension.
The onset of hypertension is slow and there is often no obvious discomfort at the beginning. Most patients often have no obvious symptoms at the beginning of the disease or only mild headache, dizziness, tight and heavy scalp, stiff neck, chest tightness or breath-holding, or in some cases, only palpitations. Many people only discover that they have hypertension without realizing it. Some people often do not pay attention to their blood pressure until after serious consequences have occurred.
Once a patient finds out that he or she has hypertension, he or she should be actively treated. Medication is currently the most important means of controlling blood pressure and ensuring a healthy life for the patient, and most patients must take medication for life. Which drug to take, how to take the drug, the effectiveness of the drug, how to adjust the dose, there are no adverse reactions by the doctor to help you choose. But the patient’s own feelings after taking the medication and the actual effect of lowering blood pressure are the most crucial for the doctor to decide which medication you take, how to take it, how long to take it, how to adjust the dose and avoid adverse reactions and take it safely. During the holidays, special attention should be paid to the control of blood pressure.
When the Chinese New Year comes, the following suggestions can help you control your blood pressure under the guidance of your doctor.
1. Learn to self-measure your blood pressure
Self-measurement of blood pressure is a technique that must be mastered by patients with hypertension. The measurement method is easy to learn and can be accurately determined with a little training. Measurement tools can be used desktop sphygmomanometer and international standard upper-arm automatic or semi-automatic electronic sphygmomanometer. Before the measurement, rest for at least 5 minutes, no smoking or coffee for 30 minutes, take a sitting position, and measure twice, each time with an interval of 1-2 minutes, the average of the two times is the blood pressure number measured.
If the difference between the two readings is more than 5 mmHg, add the third side, and take the average of the three times as the result of this record. For many patients, accurate and appropriate self-measurement of blood pressure is the best way to observe the effect of lowering blood pressure, which is impossible for doctors to do.
2. Experience the feeling after taking the medication
Doctors decide to use antihypertensive drugs, but only the patients themselves know how they feel after taking the drugs. The ability to tell your doctor exactly how you feel after taking the medication is a guarantee that you will take the medication safely and effectively. In general, the discomfort caused by high blood pressure should disappear or be significantly reduced soon after taking the medication. If the discomfort or symptoms caused by hypertension still do not disappear or disappear inconspicuously after taking the medication as required and taking it for a period of time (generally in two weeks, at least one week), it means that either the dose of the medication is insufficient, the use is not appropriate, or there is an adverse reaction to the medication itself. The most common adverse reactions are headache, dizziness, palpitations or reduced heart rate, facial flushing, mild edema of the lower extremities, fatigue, itchy throat and dry cough, and rarely skin allergy, gingival hyperplasia, abdominal pain and diarrhea or constipation, and rarely serious adverse reactions.
Some of the above-mentioned adverse reactions can be tolerated and some can disappear naturally after a period of time, but if they persist, you should tell your doctor about them in time. The best treatment plan for many patients is finalized only after several adjustments to the medication, your feelings determine the adjustment of the doctor’s treatment plan, and also determine the effectiveness of treatment.
3.Judging the effect of blood pressure lowering
The purpose of antihypertensive treatment is to lower blood pressure to a certain level and prevent heart, brain, kidney and other important organ lesions. There are two standards for patients to judge the effect of medication, namely the minimum standard and the ideal standard. The minimum standard is to reduce blood pressure to below 140/90mmHg, and the ideal standard is to reduce to normal blood pressure and maintain it for a long time. Patients can use these two criteria to test the level of treatment and the efficacy of drugs by doctors, and they are also the main criteria to judge whether they benefit from antihypertensive treatment.
4.Adherence to medication
Hypertension is a lifelong disease and requires lifelong medication, which is something patients must realize. Adherence to medication is the most important part of antihypertensive treatment, and it is up to the patient to complete it. Whether antihypertensive treatment can achieve good results, whether it can effectively protect the heart, brain, kidneys and other important organs as well as whether patients can work and live a healthy life depends on adherence to medication to achieve.
5. Eliminate a misconception
Some patients believe that long-term medication to control blood pressure, but will the drug cause liver and kidney damage? The side effects of drugs cannot be denied, but high blood pressure is the real culprit causing damage to the patient’s liver and kidney function. Most of the blood pressure reducing drugs nowadays also have protective effects on the kidneys and other organs. Therefore, it should be recognized that if the medication is used under the regular guidance of a doctor, it will not only achieve the effect of lowering blood pressure, and protect the heart, brain and kidney function through the effect of lowering blood pressure, but the drug itself also has a protective effect on the organs, rather than damage to vital organs.
6, pay attention to the combination of work and rest and ensure adequate sleep
When hypertensive patients do not have enough sleep, it will affect the patient’s blood pressure control, poor rest will also cause blood pressure to rise, and the change in the pace of life will also make the original well-controlled blood pressure rebound. During the Spring Festival, the rest, sleep and daily routine of hypertensive patients can be disrupted due to the gathering of family and friends, the reception of guests, and the visit of children to the elderly. Therefore, hypertensive patients should pay proper attention to these issues.
7, hypertensive patients
During the festival, more high salt, high fat, high cholesterol and high calorie foods will be consumed, which will directly or indirectly affect the control of blood pressure, so it is necessary to adhere to dietary control during the festival and adhere to a low salt diet, so as to better control blood pressure.