High Blood Pressure (Hypertension)

Having high blood pressure is one of several 'risk factors' that can increase your chance of developing heart disease, a stroke, and other serious conditions. As a rule, the higher the blood pressure, the greater the risk. Treatment includes a change in lifestyle risk factors where these can be improved - losing weight if you are overweight, regular physical activity, a healthy diet, cutting back if you drink a lot of alcohol, stopping smoking, and a low salt intake. If needed, medication can lower blood pressure

Kindly submitted to this website by William Reid of Sterling

  I am 75 years old. I have had, and still lead, a fairly normal healthy life with no serious illnesses.

I retired in 1983 and some three years later my GP diagnosed Hypertension. A Consultant confirmed this and he prescribed tablets Innovace and Moduret.

 After 20 years I began suffering aches in my ankles and feet. Eventually, while on holiday in Portugal (March 2006) my feet swelled and I found it impossible to walk due to the pain. I had to take quite a number of pain killers so that I could board the plane and get home.

 In Stirling my own GP told me that I was suffering from GOUT and that that had been caused by the Moduret pills I had taken for the past 20 years. He prescribed pills for the Gout – 2 week course – and advised that I stop taking Innovace and Moduret for one month. (I have never taken these pills since!!)

 During that month, I started searching on the Internet for any alternative treatment for my Hyper-tension. I found two treatments Resperate and Breatheasy. I did not pursue the Resperate system due to cost, about £200, and that system appeared to require the wearing of complicated electrical apparatus.I selected Breatheasy, mainly on account of cost - £25. The £25 purchased two sets of CD’s. These CD's included a control sound like waves breaking on a beach and then running back to the sea, indicating when to Breathe In and then Out. The Breatheasy Ambient background is like the sounds used in Meditation – very pleasant to listen to - while the other set has a Classical Music background.

You listen to the CD for 15 minutes each day at a time to suit yourself. I find this very simple to do, just sit down, usually at forenoon Coffee Time, relax and breathe in accordance with the wave sounds while listening to the overlay of soothing and relaxing music. If you miss the odd day, that does not appear to prejudice the overall effectiveness of the system.

 See www.control-your-blood-pressure.com for the Breatheasy system and details of originator David O’Hara. The system is quite new, being just over two years since created.

  See www.ochils.blogspot.com for my own experience of use over the past two years. From an original BP of 200/150, my pressure is now, and has been for past two years, normal and regularly at 120/85. Last year (2007) my own GP, when I presented him with a month of wrist monitor readings achieved by regular use of Breatheasy, said – “My training is in Pharmaceutical Medicine and I cannot comment on the System you are using, but, never the less, I cannot dispute your figures and would advise continuing while maintaining a close watch in case of any departure from the normal”