Select your own hypertension treatment to effectively lower your blood pressure. Then, you may likely have good control of your blood pressure. Nevertheless, there are some people who just try to follow what their doctor tells them to do. Then, when it fails to lower their blood pressure, they get discourage and become non-adherent to their treatment.
Why Are So Many Non-adherent?
Is it due to unmet expectations? Do they know that treatment for hypertension is trial and error? Your health care provider tries different medication to find the best medication for you.
Nevertheless, most people do not want to take medication. There are several reasons why this is the case. Some reasons may be that is taking medication is inconvenient, expensive, and unattractive.
More than half of people with hypertension who have been prescribed 3 medication or more are not compliant with their medication as prescribed by their doctor. In fact, one study showed that some took part of their medication but 50% took none of their mediation. That’s doing what you want to do.
There are poor consequences for doing what you want to do like being non-adherent to your medication. People who don’t take their medication as prescribed, will likely have high blood pressure and die too soon. They are at high risk for having a stroke or heart attack or live with a disability dependent on others for the rest of their lives. They are also more likely to have kidney or heart disease or kidney or heart failure.
What Are Your Choices?
Actually, YOU HAVE CHOICES WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR HYPERTENSIVE TREATMENT, BUT YOU ALSO MAY HAVE CONSEQUENCES IF YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE IS UNCONTROLLED.
1) Take medication for the rest of your life and no diet or lifestyle modification
2) Take medication for the rest of your life and diet and lifestyle modification
3) Take medication for a period of time until diet and life style modifications control your blood pressure
4) Take no medication for your blood pressure and watch and wait
5) Take no medication for your blood pressure and forget you have hypertension until your office visit
6) Various combinations of the 5 selections above or other choices
Select You Own Treatment
It is not a bad thing to do what you want to do. No, really, doing what you want to do is a good thing because it fuels your motivation to do it. What am I talking about? Well, I am talking about you selecting your own treatment for your blood pressure.
If you don’t want to take blood pressure medication, then work hard on your life style modifications to lower your blood pressure. After all, research has shown that this is absolutely effective. The ISSUE WITH LIFESTYLE MODIFICATION IS IT TAKES SOME TIME TO BE EFFECTIVE.
Realistically, you might have to compromise and take medication for a period of time until your lifestyle modification can catch up to lowering your blood pressure. If you REALLY do not want to be on medication, YOU will need to do the following routinely:
1) Monitor your blood pressure at home, log your measurements and share with your health care provider. https://amzn.to/2WUf8Ex
2) Determine what your choices are based on the severity of your blood pressure. Work with your health care provider to develop a plan.
3) Step up your exercise plan and WALK AT LEAST 60 MINUTES A DAY.One of my most comfortable and supporting shoes is the Nike Flex. https://amzn.to/2MC0yxM
Check with your health care provider before starting or increasing your exercise plan (reduces systolic blood pressure approximately 4-9 mmHg) Tack your steps with an apple watch or fit bit. I prefer the fitbit because it can track your sleep as well. https://amzn.to/2MzsaU7
4) Bring your whole food meal lunch every day to work in your lunch bag: prep meals for the week and eat a whole food meal on weekends (reduces systolic blood pressure approximately 8-14 mmHg)
5) If you drink alcohol, limit amount to 1 drink a day for women and 2 drinks a day for men (reduces systolic blood pressure approximately 2-4 mmHg)
6) Avoid sugar, pasta, rice, breads and wheat to achieve a normal body weight (reduces systolic blood pressure approximately 5-20 mmHg)
Learn what your choices are and trust yourself enough to know what’s best for you. Then, work with your health care provider to get the treatment that you prefer to lower your blood pressure for the best outcome? Otherwise, you may become like 60% of the other people with hypertension who are not taking their medication as prescribed.
Resources
Chobanian, A. V., Bakris, G., Black, H. R., Cushman, W. C., Green, L. A., & Izzo, J. L., et al. (2003). The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure: The JNC 7 report. Journal of the American Medical Association, 289,2560-2571.
