Hypertension – Treatment

Transcript

Starting treatment for high blood pressure and what that might look like for someone can vary widely. Most people who are diagnosed with stage one hypertension would not qualify for initial drug therapy. They might start with balancing your diet and making lifestyle changes like consistent exercise. You may reduce your salt intake, or you may try to lose weight, to make sure that your stage one hypertension is better controlled. In stage two hypertension, drug therapy is also usually started. And physicians can prescribe any one of several classes of blood pressure medications to control your blood pressure. One of the leading medications for blood pressure is a thiazide diuretic, also known as a water pill. This type of medicine will allow you to pass excess salt from your body and reduce your blood pressure at the same time. Treatment of high blood pressure can depend on age, race and other conditions you might have. There are also situations where you’re prescribed two drugs at the same time. This occurs when you have usually stage two high blood pressure, and your blood pressure is far from normal. Also for difficult to treat high blood pressure, it is not uncommon to start with two medications and eventually you may need three medications or more to control your blood pressure.