Many people have already heard about blood pressure. They have learned about it from health
talks in the market, church, or at their workplace.
The awareness about the dangers of high blood pressure is so widespread that some people even go about with sphygmomanometers to
measure random people’s blood pressure for a fee.
You know, they just come by your workplace, give you a brief talk on the dangers of high blood pressure and explain to you why
you should check yours regularly.
The next moment, they produce their equipment and you
find yourself being unable to reject the offer.
Great business concept they have.
For others, their first hearing of blood pressure was at a healthcare center.
A doctor or another healthcare professional, usually after recording a high value for them, educates them on blood
pressure and counsels them on measures to control it and the need to check regularly.
Sadly, for many people, by the time a healthcare professional is coming into the picture, some degree
of damage has already occurred.
Some would even have come down with a heart condition
before their high blood pressure is detected.
Whether you have heard of blood pressure before or not, the important thing is that you are
reading this article. You will learn 5 reasons why you should never joke with your blood
pressure.
Your Blood Pressure Can Cost You Your Heart
You heard that right! Your blood pressure can cost you your heart. How does this happen? Your
heart is the organ that pumps blood round your body.
As long as you’re living, your heart is
working. It’s constantly pumping blood to every part of your body through a network of vessels
called arteries, arterioles and capillaries.
The blood, after supplying oxygen and nutrients to
your body, returns to the heart through venules and veins. Never mind if you don’t quite
understand.
The point is, the arteries that your heart pumps blood through are like little pipes of varying
sizes. Because they’re not that large, blood passes through them under pressure. This pressure
in itself is not bad. It is actually needed for the blood to travel to all parts of your body. The
problem is when the blood pressure becomes too high. When that happens, your heart has to
work harder to pump blood.
This is usually for two reasons.
It may be because the arteries have become narrow which can
happen when excess fats line up on the inside of the arteries. It can also happen if for other
reasons, the amount of fluid in your circulatory system is greater than normal.
In the first case,
your fluid level is normal but the space in the arteries is reduced. In the second case, the space
is normal but the fluid level has increased. In both cases, more work has to be done by your
heart to deliver blood round your body.
Now, it’s natural logic that if your heart works harder, it will get tired earlier than it should.
Remember that your heart never rests.
In other words, since before you were born to this
moment, your heart has not even taken a break. The moment it does, there will be a problem.
High blood pressure overworks your heart, making it go into retirement prematurely. It can
lead to heart failure.
High Blood Pressure Can Cost You Your Eyes
That’s correct! When the blood pressure is higher than normal, it can injure your eyes. How
does this happen?
Remember the arteries, arterioles and capillaries I mentioned earlier? Well,
they are not of the same size.
Arteries are larger than arterioles which are also larger than
capillaries.
The implication is that the amount of pressure each can bear is also not the same.
Usually, when blood gets into the arteries, it travels to all parts of the body where it divides into
arterioles from which it finally gets to the tissues via the capillaries.
Your eyes too have their own capillaries that give them blood.
High blood pressure can damage these friable capillaries,
reducing or totally cutting out blood supply to your eyes.
Without blood supply to your eyes, your vision becomes bad.
See? It’s not every time you’re having a problem with your sight that
you apply eye drops. Sometimes, your blood pressure is to blame.
High Blood Pressure Can Cost You Your Kidneys
Yea, that’s what you read! It can cost you your kidneys. You know, your kidneys too need blood,
don’t they? And if they do, then they must have arteries, arterioles and capillaries, musn’t they?
What happens in the eyes is similar to what happens in the kidneys.
As those parts of the kidneys begin to suffer reduced blood supply, they start to die slowly. As they do so, your total
kidney function starts to reduce.
You know how important your kidneys are, don’t you?
Ultimately, if not diagnosed and controlled early, your kidneys can fail.
The thing with the kidney damage is that it may not reverse even after you’ve got your blood pressure under
control.
High Blood Pressure Can Cost You Your Brain
Frightening, isn’t it? Well, that’s what it is. You’ve heard of stroke, haven’t you? Stroke happens
by two main mechanisms.
In either case, there is a problem with blood supply to the brain. In
the first case, there is not enough blood reaching that part of the brain because of a narrowing
or blocking of the arteries supplying it.
In the second case, the artery supplying blood to that
part of the brain is ruptured?
The immediate problem is bleeding into raw brain tissue.
Notwithstanding that bleeding is happening into the brain, blood is still not reaching the parts
of the brain distant to the rupture.
Now, why does the artery rupture? High blood pressure! Remember, the vessels can only take a
certain amount of pressure.
Now, after you’ve had a stroke, you’ll need to treat the
complications of the stroke as well as control the blood pressure. So why not just control the
blood pressure at once?
It Can Destroy You Without Warning
Perhaps, the most dreadful thing about high blood pressure is that it doesn’t even give you any
warning.
There are no known specific symptoms of high blood pressure. Some people may have
headache, but there are several causes of headache. Since there are no symptoms to warn
about high blood pressure, many people are walking about with it unknowingly.
The bigger problem is, while they don’t know it’s there, it’s causing them damage to their eyes, kidneys
and heart all the same.
This is also why strokes seem to happen suddenly. It’s usually because
the damage was going on undetected in the background.
Now you know why you must never joke with your blood pressure. You may, in fact, be joking
with your brain and much more!