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General HealthDiseases and conditionsHow to keep your blood pressure down
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How to keep your blood pressure down

continued from page 4
Other tests
Once your doctor has diagnosed hypertension, he may want to do some further tests before deciding upon suitable treatment. Some of these tests may be repeated periodically during your follow-up care.
  • A physical examination. Your doctor may check your retinas and abdomen, listen to your lungs and heart, take your pulse in your feet, look for swelling in your ankles, and check your weight and height to calculate your BMI (body mass index).
  • A urinalysis. Your doctor may ask you to urinate into a special container and will send it to a lab for an analysis, looking for elevated protein, sugar, white blood cells, or other abnormalities.
  • An electrocardiogram (ECG). Your doctor may arrange for an ECG to be done in the surgery or make arrangements for it to be done elsewhere. This records electrical activity in the heart. This only takes a few minutes and is painless. The results will be analysed for any abnormalities indicating an enlarged heart or other abnormality.
  • A kidney profile. Your doctor will take blood from your arm and send it to a lab to analyse it, looking for abnormalities such as elevated creatinine.
  • A thyroid profile. Your doctor will take blood from your arm and have it analysed for abnormalities such as an elevated level of thyroid hormone.
  • A chest X-ray. Your doctor may arrange a chest X-ray, looking for enlargement of your heart and main blood vessels.
  • Your doctor may look for other conditions that would increase your risk of heart attacks and strokes, such as diabetes and raised cholesterol. He will also want to know if you are a smoker, as this further increases heart attack and stroke risk.
High blood pressure: treatment
While there is no cure for hypertension, it is easily detected and usually controllable. Your doctor has seven drug classes, including more than 700 medications, to choose from when selecting a high blood pressure or anti-hypertensive drug. Generally, all of these drugs can lower your blood pressure, but often people respond very differently to each drug. You probably will have to try out a few of them before finding the one that works the best for you with the least amount of side effects.

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