Well why don’t we kick off with the cheerful bit
first? Basically if left untreated and ignored
it will kill you? How about that for starters?
“OK Steve”, I hear you cry, “hit me with the
cheerful stuff and don’t hold anything back!”
High blood Pressure is difficult to spot in the
traditional sense of things and the warning
signs are very difficult if nigh on impossible
for the lay person to identify.
You can be diagnosed in number of ways and you
would be surprised how and when you can pick up
a diagnosis of High Blood Pressure.
This is not meant to act as an attempt to instil
wholesale panic amongst folks. Take yesterday
afternoon for example.
I had a routine examination at my opticians for
a repeat prescription and to check out my eyes
for reading glasses. It was the usual drill for
someone in their forties. Basically as a friend
of mine had cheerfully pointed out a few years
back it wasn’t a case of my eyes being faulty it
was more of a case of my arms not being long
enough when I wanted to be able to read a book
comfortably!
So, back to the Opticians. There I was resting
my chin on the support for this new fangled
piece of technology that they now use to check
out your eyes and going through the initial
process when the Optician turned to me and said
“OK now I am gong to shoot a few jets of some
gasses into your eyes”.
“OK” I thought, “here goes, this should be
interesting.”
Anyway a few puffs of gas later – a very
painless experience I must add and the Optician
turned to me and said “Did you know you have
slightly raised Blood Pressure? How long have
you been suffering from it and when was the last
time you saw your Doctor?”
“Ah, should have told you about that before” I
said, “Yes I do suffer from High Blood Pressure
and this is the medication I am on.” I proceeded
to go through my prescription and she, very
professionally took down copious notes. “Does
this sort of thing happen often?”
“You would be surprised by how often it does”
came the reply. “When we do our first check on
anew patient (or one that hasn’t been to us for
some time), the first thing we do is check the
blood pressure in the eyes. Left untreated it
can eventually lead to blindness. Quite often
people don’t realise that a visit to their
optician can be the first line in the defence
against High Blood Pressure as a condition”
“Now I see” I thought (pardon the pun) – two
reasons to go and have your eyes checked
regularly. Even if you think you have 20/20
vision (and especially if you work with Computer
screens and Monitors on a daily basis). An eye
examination can pick up treatable conditions and
deal with them as well as providing an
opportunity to spot subtle changes that can be
the forerunners of much more dangerous
conditions such as High Blood Pressure.
Stephen Morgan - Senior Editor |
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