Jump in blood pressure

[Transalp]

Hello,

56 year old male, overweight, had somewhat elevated BP in the 145/85 for years, just recently it made a quick jump up to the 165/95 range (and popped up to 185/103 at one point). Is it normal for it to jump quite quickly like that?

NHS are giving me 5mg Amlodipine, but the Dr said it was just artery hardening with age, but if that was the case I would have expected a more gradual increase rather than this quick jump?

For you old lags on the BP issue, any suggestions on what I should be doing from your experience? (I am also on the thyroid boards after thyroid cancer 13 years ago and find the experience of posters, myself included, highly valuable).

Many thanks

[Happyrosie]

From 145 to 165 isn’t all that much - you might have been a bit dehydrated, or didn’t have the same amount of rest before the measurement was taken, or something on those lines.

A good source of info is Blood Pressure UK, the charity.

You ask what you should be doing, and the website gives guidance. Tweak your diet, look at your exercise and think how to increase it gradually for instance. If you don’t have one, you might consider buying a bp machine and take your pressures say once a month, always after ten minutes rest, at a similar time of day, discarding the first reading and taking the average of the next two. Keep a record for your gp.

[cuore]

There is a lot of literature out now that statins are not good for you.

[cuore]

Here is one article I came across:

drsircus.substack.com/p/who...

[Transalp]

I thought Statins were for cholesterol and Amlodipine was for BP?

[Transalp]

I think that's just the Dr's guess - it was consistently in the sub-145 for years and then jumped straight up to the 165 over a period of a month or two.

[Transalp]

I was there, the Dr was the usual NHS Doc with no time to consider if the jump from sub-145 up to 165 was a secondary hypertension issue or primary, in the ten minutes just reached for the prescription pad for calcium antagonist.

I will look into the 2D doppler and CT Cardiac scan in the private sector.

[cuore]

Each to their own, but I noted it was a Feb. 7, 2008 publication.