what is normal for blood pressure ?

[jamiesmom]

My dp went for a check up with the nurse at doctors surgery Thursday and was told he has dangerously high blood presure and asked to come back this morning, he went back and it's still realy high, 178/80. Does anyone knoe what is the normal blood presure for a male, 33 years old, non-smoker, who rarly drinks? He now has to go to see the doctor on Friday

that is high then - usually they want the bottom one to be less than about 90.

It might be worth getting a blood pressure monitor yourself so that you can keep an eye on things at home (where you are generally less stressed). You can wrist ones or ones like they use at the gp - they don't cost too much.

You can cut out things like salt, lose a bit of weight and increase exercise - which should all help a bit.

But I guess they will prescribe some tablets (I was on adalat for 18 months between pregnancies) - they are fairly benign I think.

throckencolt - dp hardely uses salt but am thinking of going & bying some low salt for him, he's not over weight and he gets loads of exersice in his job so i'm going to start cooking more healthly to see if that helps.

His mom has high bp & is on tablets but dp can't swollow tablets it doesn't matter how small they are so i'm hoping if he needs medication they do it in a medicen form.

foxinsocks - just been on th blood pressure page, very usefull thanks

those are the standard responses - low salt, lose weight etc - but some people have high blood pressure even if they have none of those things.

Don't panic - he has probably always had it - you just didn't know. But it is an indication to get it investigated and cholesterol etc. And time to try and find out as much about it as you can.

oh good, I'm glad it's useful. I have a hard time getting dh to take his bp seriously because there are no outward symptoms which is I guess, what makes it so dangerous.

My dh found out about his bp in exactly the same way as yours. I forced him to go and register at the GP when we moved and he hadn't been to the GP for years!I guess at least they found out about your dh's bp now rather than later because it means they can do something about it before it leads to anything more serious.

Hope it goes well at the doc.

For me normal is 90/60 - gives Dr's a scare if they don't know me.

I know what you mean AussieSim. First thing in the morning before a cup of tea my normal blood pressure is around 80/50. I have had numerous comments like "i think there's something wrong with our machine" to "according to your blood pressure, you should be in a coma right now."

mines low too! when pregnant i get so lightheaded and dizzy....and am always told 'there's nothing to worry about low blood pressure'

my husband's is very high....and was symptom free- it was only picked up on a rouitine health check......

nature's weird...Low- gives warnings- but isn't dangerous.....whereas high is sneaky and symptomless and is so dangerous.

my husband is on 2 types of tablets now- and his readings are lower.

he also has an irregular heartbeat which makes reading it hard!

mine is always low. it was taken this morning at the gym during a fitness assessment (ha!) and he did it about 3 times. although I had warned him that it was always low he thought that 85/55 was a mistake!

Useful for pregnancy though.

dp went to doctors again this morning and has had to have blood tests taken as his bp is still high but it had dropped a little, it's now 149/107 and has to go back in a week and half for results. keep fingers crossed for him please