Living with HBP

I am a 27 year old woman with high blood pressure. For about 25 years I have dealt with asthma and through out that time I believe my blood pressure was rising and nothing was done to keep it under control. Now that I have my asthma under control, it’s time to control my blood pressure. I had gone to the doctor’s yesterday after a month of blood tests and taking a half a pill of Hydrochlorothiazide. Unfortunately my doctor told me that she found a lot of protein in my kidneys. Not a good thing. So she had asked me if high blood was in my family. Which is it, my dad has had high blood pressure since he was 30. Then she had asked if in other doctor appointment if my blood pressure reading was high. Which it was, other doctors before my recent one would just assume that my high blood pressure reading was from taking Albuterol (an asthma medicine which I was taking a lot.) So my doctor then told me that there’s a chance that because of my blood pressure rising, it has hardened the outside of my blood cells which is making them harder to move around. This means high blood pressure. She said it can be fixed with a lot of changes. So far I’m completely off of my Albuterol medication; I only take a puff of my inhaler if I feel a wheeze coming on. Then I cut out frozen foods from my diet. Basically I now only go to the frozen section to pick up ice cream, or yogurt. Now a recent email from my doctor informed me that it’s time to say goodbye to hamburgers. She Recommend the leaner cuts of red meat, and avoid marbled red meats and ground beef/hamburgers.  If my blood pressure is still high we need to discuss further imaging studies to evaluate the kidneys. So the good news is, we think that my problem area is in my kidneys. Just in case, I’m planning on starting with diet called “The Dash Diet “. This was one of the best ways to keep down blood pressure. I’m planning on going below the normal 2100 mg of Sodium in take. I’m going to shoot for fewer than 1500 mg of Sodium (aka salt). A lot with cutting down on my meat in take this will hopefully help me.

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