How to control your blood pressure

Most people with high blood pressure try and do their best to ensure that their pressure is always within normal limits.

Usually, using the wrong drug, wrong dosage or skipping your drugs all together is the most common cause why there may be blood pressure problems.

However, sometimes, there may be difficulty controlling your pressure despite following your prescribed medicines as instructed.

This situation is what is known as resistant hypertension (high blood pressure).

Common causes of resistant high blood pressure include:

Medication side-effects

Sometimes the medicines you are taking for other health problems may affect your blood pressure. Certain pain killers, oral contraceptives, steroids, allergy medication, weight loss and migrane medication have been associated with increased blood pressure.

White coat effect

There are certain patients who find that pressure readings taken in the clinic or doctor’s office are much higher than those taken at home.

Kidney complications

The kidneys are crucial in the control of blood pressure and if you have any kidney abnormalities or damage, your pressures will be difficult to control. One of the reasons men with very large prostates have them removed is to prevent kidney damage.

Diabetic complications:

After several years of living with diabetes, especially if it is poorly controlled, you get damage to your kidneys leading to increased blood pressure.

Hormonal disorders

This include problems of the thyroid, parathyroid (small glands around the thyroid) and adrenals (small glands located above the kidneys).