Hypertension

Hypertension is another way of saying that your blood pressure is high most of the time.

Having high blood pressure is one of several risk factors that can increase your risk of developing heart disease, strokes or other conditions later in life. It does not mean that you will have these things happen to you, but it does mean that reducing your risk factors will reduce the risk of this happening.

You may be able to reduce your blood pressure through loosing weight, regular exercise, eating healthily stopping smoking and cutting back on your alcohol consumption if you have a lot.

Lifestyle changes are important but most people find that they need to take two or more different types of pills to bring the blood pressure down. Your doctor or nurse will start you on this medication if lifestyle changes do not work on their own, or if the readings are very high.

Patients being diagnosed with hypertension for the first time will be asked to see the nurse for a blood test and urine sample.

We would like all patients with hypertension to have a blood test to check on your renal function once per year and a check on your blood pressure with a nurse every 6 months. In practice this means that we will aim for everyone with hypertension to have had their blood pressure checked between the 1st July and the end of February.

A more detailed patient information leaflet on hypertension is available by clicking on the links below.

http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/23068761/