Has anyone successfully reduced their blood pressure without medication?

[Sunshineandflipflops]

Hi

I have had fairly high bp the last few times I have been to the doctor's. They won't let me have the combined pill because of it so i am on the mini-pill.

Now and again I get really bad headaches - I have just got over a 2 day one and I'm thinking it may be related so my parents and partner want me to go to the doctor again to ask about medication.

I really want to avoid being on life-long bp medication if I can so was wondering if anyone has successfully managed to lower theirs without?

For context: I could do with losing a stone or so...am a size 14 but have never been skinny. I don't smoke, I am currently not drinking (stopped 2 weeks ago) and am intending to only drink occasionally going forward. My diet is balanced on the whole - I'm no angel but I cook from scratch most of the time - fairly healthy meals such as chilli/rice made with reduced fat mince, prawn stir fry, pasta with a bit of sausage in...that's a few meals from this week's menu.
I do add salt to food, which I will stop.
I walk or run every day - aim for at least 10,000 steps.

I just got hold of a bp monitor and my reading was 135/99, which I don't think is good.

Any advice or positive stories...?

Losing weights the most effective way to reduce it. My dad is obese and his drs first suggestion was to lose weight but he refused to and had diuretics instead.

Losing weight massively reduces your risk of getting cancer and heart attacks too.

I'm working on it but I'm not hugely overweight and have never been below a size 12, or wanted to be. I don't weigh myself as I don't have a healthy relationship with scales and weighing.

I'm not sure a stone is going to have much effect but willing to try.

Oh it will, for every pound we put on your bp raises by 10 points (or something like that, I read it and thought how interesting then forgot the exact numbers).

My dh always said he couldn’t lose weight then he got heart failure and changed his diet, he’s a stone down on beta blockers and a hypothyroidism.

Thanks. I'm on it.

Friend of mine took up running and didn't need their medication. They did get a bit obsessive about the running. They weren't particularly overweight to start with.

Lose weight.

A stone will absolutely make a big difference, especially if you’re not tall and it’s actually quite a meaningful percentage of your total body weight.

You can have medication to reduce your BP, but it’s well-known to bugger your joints which will reduce your exercise which will make you fatter which will increase your blood pressure.

@Buttercup2021 Great! I am 5ft 6 and a size 14 at the moment (working back down to a 12 after the lockdown pounds have crept on). I go on clothes rather than numbers and a 12 is where I am comfortable and can maintain without starving myself.

@PastMyBestBeforeDate I run already and have done for 10 years. A little injured at the moment but still getting out when I can or walking if not.

I have been where you are, and implore you not to use clothes as a guideline. Modern fabrics have a LOT of lycra and elastane playing mind games with you. That’s before we acknowledge vanity sizing.

Another thing that helps is increasing muscle and circulation. Weight bearing exercise such as yoga and free weights.

I've been doing yoga daily since the start of the month and have done it on and off for a few years so aiming to keep that up.

@Buttercup2021 It's my own clothes I go off really - I have some clothes I can't fit well into at the moment so I know when I can that I am in about the right place. Like I say, I am not or have never been very overweight. I am a typical hourglass and carry my weight fairly evenly...there's just a little extra of it that I need to get rid of to feel comfortable and healthy. I have never been advised to lose weight by a medical professional.

I have used scales before and weighing myself become obsessive for me so I won't go there again as I value my mental health too much!

Thanks for the replies so far.

I meant to add, I was weighed at the doctor's when I last went for my pill and I didn't look or ask what I weighed but they didn't comment on it either.

I'm the same height as you and a size 12/14.
BMI of 25, which is just on the cusp of being overweight.
I am trying to lose a stone.

I am on HRT and need to give regular BP readings, however I know that when I go to the surgery/nurse my BP is always much higher than it is the rest of the time - it's a well known phenomenon called "white coat syndrome" or something - getting anxious/higher BP due to medical appointments!

I have a home BP monitor and my readings can vary massively depending on when I take them. First thing in the morning is best for me and I can usually get about 121-125/ 78-80 which is OK, but it has been 140/95 if I've been rushing around.

Try taking readings at different times to get an average.
Do you wear a fitbit or anything? That can also give you other useful indicators like your cardio fitness.

I no longer add salt to food and avoid processed foods. Yoga/ relaxation can also help.

There’s a lot of debate as to whether reducing salt can reduce BP. If you eat bread, which has a staggering amount of unseen salt, try cutting it out to see if it makes a difference. Even if it wasn’t the salt reduction that made the difference, I lost weight (not eating empty calories) so same positive outcome.

Hmm you’re not hugely overweight. I think a lot of blood pressure is genetic. I’m 5ft 7 and 13 stone and eat whatever I like including cakes and fried food and the only exercise I do is walking briskly 40 mins a day. My blood pressure is and always has been 110/60 ish. I do have a lot of health issues (autoimmune ones) but my blood pressure is good. What I’m trying to say is that you may be better off giving the medication a go. It doesn’t sound like you’re doing anything wrong really!

Lose weight, and reduce your salt intake. Never more than 6MG per day, look at every item of food you eat and see how much salt is in it, you’ll be horrified.

A single stock cube for instance contains around 25% of your daily salt intake.

Don’t cook with salt, instead add other herbs and spices to add flavour. Garlic for instance is an excellent salt substitute.

I make my own chicken stock although lockdown curtailed that a bit when shopping slots were in short supply and i had to save all the meat i had for cooking, but your own stock will reduce salt massively and actually chicken stock is really tasty and you’d never realize it was so low in salt especially when you’re adding it to e.g. meat juices for gravy.

I don’t make my own vegetable stock as I find that pretty tasteless, but neither do I use many vegetable cubes.

Try and reduce the amount of red meat you eat as well.

PS: not high BP but heart failure here...

Yes by losing weight. But I had to go down to within a stone of my upper weight limit to do that.

So for me, I was still overweight but by only about 9lbs which was really hard to maintain

There’s a lot of debate as to whether reducing salt can reduce BP. If you eat bread, which has a staggering amount of unseen salt, try cutting it out to see if it makes a difference. Even if it wasn’t the salt reduction that made the difference, I lost weight (not eating empty calories) so same positive outcome. salt increases fluid retention which in turn increases weight which in turn increases BP.

@Bagelsandbrie

Hmm you’re not hugely overweight. I think a lot of blood pressure is genetic. I’m 5ft 7 and 13 stone and eat whatever I like including cakes and fried food and the only exercise I do is walking briskly 40 mins a day. My blood pressure is and always has been 110/60 ish. I do have a lot of health issues (autoimmune ones) but my blood pressure is good. What I’m trying to say is that you may be better off giving the medication a go. It doesn’t sound like you’re doing anything wrong really!

Yes, I for got to add that my dad has been on bp medication for years and so has my older brother, so I am wondering if it is more genetic but I will still lose that excess weight so I know I have done all I can.

Or make your own bread, which won't have as much salt in it. Good homemade wholemeal bread isn't empty calories.

I've been on bp medication for 12 years OP. It has no side effects and I don't really think about it much tbh. I lost weight and took up running etc when I was diagnosed, and my bp did come down a fair way, but I stay on low dose medication for safety's sake. My weight has crept up a bit lately, so this thread is a timely reminder that I need to get it down again for my bp.

My dad (mid 70s) was barely overweight at all, but had sleep apnoea, high bp, high cholesterol and pre-diabetes. He started eating low carb, lost about a stone and a half, is slimmer than he's ever been, has come off all meds and is no longer pre-diabetic!

You can have medication to reduce your BP, but it’s well-known to bugger your joints

That makes it sound like there's only one medication for high BP, which implies one cause. Both of which are, obviously, untrue.

DH has high bp, which seems to be due to a fairly unusual condition. His uncle - apparently lean and fit - died of it at 50. For some, the right medication is necessary. His joints are fine.

But for sure, do the other self-help things as well. He finds controlling his weight and reducing salt do help. We make salt-free bread and don't add any during cooking.

Drs are often quite reluctant to mention weight because it goes down like a lead balloon and I suspect they don’t want their heads bitten off.

From what I’ve been seeing re lifestyle mediated conditions there’s going to be some hard conversations being had soon because if you skirt around weight and just hand out bp meds’ the risk of heart failure & cancer stay the same. You might not have a stroke but getting cancers not a great idea either.

I’m not a dr but I’ve had patients I would have loved to have mentioned the weight issue to as a resolution to some pretty unpleasant conditions but I’m sitting there with a BMI of 18. How comfortable do you think I’d feel mentioning weight?.

Might be worth you measuring your waist circumference to determine whether you need to lose weight. There’s lots of research on how this is a better measure than BMI. I think you’re meant to have a waist measurement of less than 31” if you’re female, but please do check that.

@RoganJosh

Might be worth you measuring your waist circumference to determine whether you need to lose weight. There’s lots of research on how this is a better measure than BMI. I think you’re meant to have a waist measurement of less than 31” if you’re female, but please do check that.

It's height dependent, obviously - wast should be less than half your height as a rule of thumb. Waist to hip ratio is also used in relation to diabetes and heart health.

There's lots of calculators here:

www.bmi-calculator.net/waist-to-hip-ratio-calculator/

Losing weight (5 stone in my case) and exercising every day. I was 140/90. Now 108/65

It’s not height dependent actually, although it probably should be. It tends to be just one measurement that gets quoted, eg

www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/lifestyle/why-is-my-waist-size-important/

I changed manager at work...