Hypertension is the most common chronic disease in China, long-term hypertension may lead to atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, fundus lesions and other consequences.WHO statistics show that about 17 million people die from cardiovascular disease each year, accounting for about 1/3 of all deaths. 9.4 million of these deaths are due to complications of hypertension. For patients who have been diagnosed with hypertension, there will be many questions during the medication, summarized as follows: 1. When to start taking antihypertensive drugs? Generally, if blood pressure is ≥ 160/100 mmHg, medication antihypertensive therapy needs to be initiated. Today, with the development of new guidelines for hypertension standards, the criteria for taking medication is further reduced, if your blood pressure ≥ 140/90mmHg, on the basis of exercise, low salt and low fat diet, quit smoking and limit alcohol, reduce weight, etc. blood pressure is still not significantly reduced, no relief of symptoms, then drug antihypertensive treatment should be enabled as soon as possible. 2.Which antihypertensive drugs have the best effect? Commonly used antihypertensive drugs include five major categories: diuretics, beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor antagonists. Different hypertensive populations, different blood pressure levels, and different comorbidities require different antihypertensive drugs, and there is no one antihypertensive drug that is best, only one that is most suitable. Therefore, the selection of the appropriate antihypertensive drugs must be individualized. 3.What is the best time of day to take medication? According to the experience of most doctors and the recommendations of guidelines, many patients are used to taking their medication in the morning after getting up. This is because many patients have an early morning blood pressure “morning peak”, that is, a peak in blood pressure in the morning. Some patients also have high blood pressure at night. Therefore, these patients should take their antihypertensive medication after dinner and before bed.
Different hypertensive patients, the peak blood pressure point is not exactly the same, hypertensive patients should go to the hospital for 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring to determine the peak of their blood pressure, and then personalized medication. 4.Do I need to monitor my blood pressure frequently after taking medication? With the deepening of the understanding of hypertension, most patients with hypertension know that to effectively prevent cardiovascular diseases caused by hypertension, they need to keep their blood pressure falling steadily for 24 hours. There is no problem with monitoring blood pressure. However, some hypertensive patients, especially highly knowledgeable people pay more attention to health care, frequent blood pressure tests every day, or even once every two hours, blood pressure fluctuations will be nervous, in turn, the more nervous the higher blood pressure, forming a vicious circle. For hypertensive patients, if you want to know whether your blood pressure is falling steadily 24 hours, 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is feasible, and do not test your blood pressure too often at home. 5, once you take antihypertensive drugs, you can not stop? Once hypertension is diagnosed, it should be treated, mainly including basic treatment to improve lifestyle and drug therapy. Many patients with hypertension have concerns about taking blood pressure medication, and are always afraid of taking it and not being able to stop. Especially hypertensive patients with no obvious symptoms are resistant to taking antihypertensive drugs. In fact, most hypertensive patients need long-term adherence to medication. However, for patients with initial hypertension, the degree of blood pressure increase is not heavy, and obesity, lack of exercise, a lot of alcohol, high salt diet and other bad habits, can first not add antihypertensive drugs, serious and strict lifestyle changes. If the blood pressure is still high after 6 months, then antihypertensive drug therapy should be initiated. And in fact, many patients wait for their blood pressure to drop through lifestyle changes, and then try to see if they can get their medication reduced.