How Many People Here Are Overweight & Did Your High Blood Pressure Begin In Just Months?

[Carr6]

Hi,

I want to know how many people on here with high blood pressure are overweight and did any of you start to get high blood pressure just in months when you never had it before? I had always been thin eating tons of fattening foods and doing no exercise at all until at age 34 I had to go on a diet for the first time in my life and I've been struggling with my weight going on 20 years this new year.I gain weight right away in the same day even when I only had a cup of fat or low fat yogurt all day and my pants are fitting good,then later in the evening I'll eat two really fattening things and my pants are literally so tight they are digging into my waist and leave marks,and it takes me 5 days to a week to get my weight somewhat back down again.

Also I never had high blood pressure before,even last year when I was in a complete panic and terror that I would never walk again because I couldn't walk without a walker and a cane for two months due to a piece of my lower back disc breaking off from bad degenerative disc disease and this caused extremely painful sciatica which I never had before,I hadn't even ever heard of it,and I really wish that I hadn't! That lasted only a week,but thigh pain and weakness wasn't gone until two months.

Anyway it wasn't until October of this year that I learned in the cardiologist office which I have been going to for years because I used to get premature ventricular contractions,which is scary premature heart beat often,and my cholesterol is slightly high,so are my triglycerides ,and my good cholesterol has always been low,so I'm on 10 mg of Zetia and Pravastatin for this.

Anyway if anyone can let me know I really would appreciate it,

Thank You

[Morgan]

Hi, i was diagnosed when i had a hysterectomy in my early 40s just after my last child was born. Have yoyo dieted since a teenager, but having 4 kids really piled the weight on. I did lose a lot of weight a few years ago and one of my tablets was halved as a consequence so it does help to lose it, cutting out sugar is good. My blood pressure is under control and remains steady (Candesarten, Doxazosin and Bendrofluemethzide) for the last 20 years. I do have ITP but not bad enough to require medication.

[Carr6 in reply to Morgan]

Thank you for your detailed reply. What is ITP? Did you get high blood pressure in just months?

[Morgan in reply to Carr6]

ITP is immune thrombocytopenia purpura, low platelets which means the blood takes longer to clot. The high blood pressure was dealt with immediately by hospital/gp so i was pretty unaware of it before the op. ITP took longer to diagnose - must have had it before the hysterectomy but nobody realised for years.

[Carr6 in reply to Morgan]

How could the doctors not have realized you had high blood pressure,didn't they check itas part of regular doctors visits or even if you went to the doctor for something else?

[Morgan in reply to Carr6]

As I said it was diagnosed during an op. and dealt with. Prior to that I only ever went to doctors when i was pregnant, i was rarely ill. Now bp checked twice a year, its always steady.

[Ianc2 in reply to Morgan]

DASH diet + regular exercise (1 mile a day) + no nibbles except apples pears. Get yourself a Fitbit to measure progress.

Or keep taking more and more pills

[Morgan in reply to Ianc2]

Did you mean that for Carr6 or me ? Personally i wont be a slave to a Fitbit, scales dont lie.

[Ianc2 in reply to Morgan]

Meant for Carr6. As you say scales don't lie.

[Carr6 in reply to Ianc2]

What is a Fitbit? And I'm not going to eat tasteless bland food all of the time I can't do it.

[Ianc2 in reply to Carr6]

Fitbit: a heart rate and fitness wristband that tracks activity, exercise & sleep, displays real-time stats on a display and links to an app on your mobile phone if you want it to. There are plenty of other makes available.

I have just come back in from a walk so it tells me I have made 12,197 steps, Heart rate is currently 64 beats per minute, and I have walked 5.75 miles, climbed the equivalent of 20 flights of stairs, along with several other measurements.

I can synchronise the phone with device and get a readout of my history going back years. I can also see what my friends are doing, which is useful for motivation purposes.

Tasteless bland foods? Take out the salt and the sugar from your diet and put in a variety of herbs and spices. Get your local library to order in '100 best gluten free foods' contains 100 recipes. Hamburgers and chips it is not.

It also gives a breakdown of all the nutrients you will get with each meal.

[Carr6 in reply to Ianc2]

Lanc2, thank you for your response and salt out of my diet especially sugar does mean bland tasteless food. I never ever added a lot of salt to food I cooked,and I don't like anything too salty,but I did cheat on my diet when I had normal blood pressure like my favorite food Chinese food since I'm two years old,pizza,hoagies etc but it never effected my blood pressure. And I always crave sweet stuff maybe I would rather die young and eat food that tastes great then live longer eating bland tasteless cr*p!

And when I recently made baked salmon I didn't add just a pinch of salt I always did and just added more seasonings and now just very little cooking wine instead of the medium amount I always did,there is a lot of salt in it,and it didn't taste as good at all.Salt is an excellent flavor enhancer and that's why it's everything and it's also a very good food preservative too.

I recently went to McDonalds and I asked them if their french fries come salted or do they put it on afterwards and to my surprise they said they come unsalted so I asked them not to put sany on,and the woman there asked me if I want her not to put any salt on the quarter pounder cheeseburger and I said yes just pepper but she said the salt and pepper is mixed together,so I said then don't put any on, I only put black pepper on it,and even a little on the fries.

And it honestly only tasted good not great. I hadn't eaten anything all day in hours except a cup of fat free yogurt.

I recently ordered chinese food and asked them too put less soy sauce and a little more sesame oil in instead and another night less barbeque sauce and it was still good but not as great.

[Carr6]

Today in my doctors office my blood pressure was pretty good,much lower than it's been just a few nights ago,I really only wish it would stay this way and the top number would get even lower but the medical assistant said that blood pressure normally fluctuates in a day.

Also my podiatrist who says he's always been underweight and that it's genetic,said he's been on blood pressure medicine since his 50's and his thin son in his 30's has high blood pressure too!

[Ianc2 in reply to Carr6]

Try a 1200 calorie a day diet + exercise + meds. You will find it very hard to start with ( a cheeseburger and chips is about 900) but if you can persevere the stresses and pressure in your body may slowly start to change. It won't be a quick or easy fix and will require a completely new approach to eating but if you wish to have a long and healthy life it may be your only option.

[kindred7]

I am overweight and developed high blood pressure (diastolic) seemingly out of the blue. I've always checked BP at home and had it checked at the GP. It was always in the 100/60-120/70 range. a week before my BP suddenly went up tp 130/110, my BP at the doctor's was 115/65 and the doctor congratulated me on it. Once it went up, it stayed there for weeks, only lowering to about 130/95 ish on a few occasions and diastolic was in the 100-105 range. This was despite being on hydrochlorothiazide. It had very little impact on bp.

I am now on bisoprolol 2.5 mg and it's brought the diastolic down to mid 80s. this morning it was 100/85. pulse rate is down from 100-120 (been that way for decades) resting to 70-85. But the diastolic is still a tad elevated. My TSh was normal, but I have been diagnosed with Hashimoto's 10 years back and had to stop synthroid 100 mcg as I started getting hyperthyroid symptoms on it which resolved as soon it was stopped. I probably should have been on a much lower maintenance dose or something, because diastolic hypertension can be caused by hypothyroidism as well. I am on metformin for well controlled T2 diabetes (4.9 AIC, 6.5 at diagnosis) and PCOS, which also lowers TSH. My hair is falling out, and I am experiencing severe fatigue and memory problems and cramping all over my body much like I did before I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. So it honestly might be a factor in my case.

I also went on keto for my t2d, and while my BG control is excellent and I don't go crazy with salt (my sodium was on the lower end of normal and potassium was normal), another reason for my BP rising could be related to electrolyte imbalances. My sodium and potassium and calcium were normal but magnesium may have been low (wasn't tested). Magnesium deficiency can raise BP as well. So I am now taking magnesium supplements after consulting my cardiologist, whom I initially saw for the shortness of breath I developed after heavy period bleeding that didn't resolve months after the bleed.

My cholesterol is normal and triglycerides are in the low-normal range. I am however severely deficient in vitamin B 12, have low normal ferritin (40 and should be at least 70) and vitamin D, possibly magnesium as well from peeing more on keto. I have lost weight too and my diet is actually better now though it was never too bad, but BP has gone up. So i wish I had something more useful to share, but I am confused myself.

If anyone has similar experiences with BP, please do share.

[jan85uk]

I have been on blood pressure meds for over 25 years.I suffered hypertenstion during pregnancy.I have struggled with my weight since.I lost alot of weight in 2006 and felt good.Bp returned to normal.Then weight returned after about 9 years.Joined ww and last year managed to loose 3 stone again,i feel so much better.still on meds for bp.but feel so much healthier with the weight lose.