Archive for the ‘Blood Pressure’ Category

Are You Suffering From Sleep Apnea Symptoms? Here’s How To Find Out

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

In the United States today, there is a growing medical condition that is both dangerous and life threatening. It can cost thousands of dollars in income, and create a host of other medical problems if left untreated. And the most disturbing thing is this condition can be extremely hard to diagnose unless you are specifically looking for it. The problem is sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea has only come into the public consciousness fairly recently. Luckily, every year there is more and more money being spent on sleep centers and other research efforts to combat this condition. However advanced the research gets, the problem of discovery lies squarely on the face of the patient.

This can be a very hard condition to have. There is no blood scan, or collection of symptoms that point to sleep apnea and only sleep apnea. The reason this is such a hard thing to pin down is because apnea symptoms are often thought to be normal, everyday ailments that come with normal, everyday life.

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Understanding Your Blood Pressure

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

What is blood pressure? Blood pressure is the force of your blood against the walls of your arteries. Blood pressure consists of two number; a top and bottom number. The top number is the systolic pressure. The bottom number is the diastolic pressure.

Systolic blood pressure is the force of blood in your arteries as your heart beats. If your systolic number is higher than one hundred and forty you have high blood pressure. Even if your diastolic number is not high you can still have ‘isolated systolic hypertension.’ This means only your systolic number is high.

This is more common for older Americans. This pressure usually increases with age whereas diastolic pressure decreases after fifty-five. You might not know if you have isolated systolic hypertension so ask your doctor if you are concerned.

Diastolic blood pressure is the force of blood in your arteries when your heart relaxes between beats. For younger people this is a very important number. The higher this pressure is the more you are at risk. This blood pressure lowers as you get older and your systolic increases. Therefore diastolic is more important in younger people and systolic in older.

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