High Blood Pressure

High Blood Pressure services offered in Bossier City, LA

High blood pressure is a dangerous condition that affects one in three Americans, many who are unaware of it. Find out if high blood pressure is impacting your health by scheduling an appointment with Corine Bowman, MD, and the team at Bowman Family Medicine Clinic, LLC, in Bossier City, Louisiana. If you have high blood pressure or are at risk for high blood pressure, the team at Bowman Family Medicine Clinic, LLC, can help you get healthy. Don’t become a victim of the “silent killer.” Call the office to schedule an appointment for high blood pressure, or request one online today.

What is high blood pressure?

High blood pressure is elevated pressure in your arteries. Also known as hypertension, this chronic condition that affects over 100 million American adults.

High blood pressure is a dangerous condition for numerous reasons. First, it forces your heart to work harder just to move blood through your body. Second, it can damage your blood vessel walls by building up a hard residue called plaque.

As it builds, plaque narrows the space inside your arteries and increases hypertension by making it even harder for your heart to pump blood.

When left untreated, hypertension can potentially lead to other health problems, including:

Heart attack
Stroke
Aneurysm
Heart failure
Irregular heartbeat
Dementia
Cognitive decline
Vision loss

Hypertension can also contribute to various types of organ damage.

Who is at risk for high blood pressure?

In general, older men and women are at a higher risk of high blood pressure than younger people. However, in the African American community, people often develop high blood pressure at a younger age and with more severity. As a whole, African Americans experience a higher blood pressure rate than the general population.

You’re at a higher risk for high blood pressure if you make particular lifestyle choices or suffer from certain health conditions. In particular, you put yourself at a higher risk for hypertension if you:

Smoke
Abuse of alcohol or drugs
Take certain medications

Also, you are more likely to develop high blood pressure if you’re overweight or obese, and you can develop secondary hypertension from other underlying conditions, including:

Obstructive sleep apnea
Kidney disease
Diabetes
Adrenal gland tumors
Thyroid disease

You can also develop secondary hypertension due to congenital disabilities in the heart or other organs.

How do you treat high blood pressure?

The team at Bowman Family Medicine Clinic, LLC, helps you treat and control your high blood pressure by collaborating with you to create an individualized plan of action. To determine the right treatment measures for you, your provider first asks you about your lifestyle and health history.

Together, you pinpoint practices that you can change and habits that you can develop to improve your health, such as:

Exercise
Nutritional counseling
Blood pressure monitoring
Cholesterol monitoring
Smoking cessation

In addition to these measures, your provider may prescribe medication to help you control your high blood pressure, such as a beta-blocker.

If your high blood pressure is out of control, don’t wait to take action. Call Bowman Family Medicine Clinic, LLC, to schedule an appointment, or request one online today.