High Blood Pressure And Chronic Fatigue

Blood Pressure Checks During Pregnancy

If you are pregnant, you should have your blood pressure checked on a regular basis, even if it is not high.

Watching your blood pressure while you are pregnant reduces your risk of developing pregnancy-induced hypertension. This can lead to a serious condition called pre-eclampsia where there is a problem with the placenta .

Chronic Fatigue & Heart Disease

If youre chronically tired, this can be a sign of many other heart problems. Fatigue can be a sign of heart valve problems or heart failure. Also, studies have linked chronic fatigue with several heart problems. For example, many people who experience chronic fatigue also have left ventricular dysfunction. This is a heart condition where your left ventricle doesnt pump blood properly. The left ventricle is the thickest heart chamber and is responsible for pumping blood full of oxygen to your organs. Congestive heart failure commonly follows left ventricular dysfunction. Therefore, its important to talk to our womens health care provider if youre feeling extra tired without an explanation.

Good Sleep Can Prevent And Manage High Blood Pressure

Most people experience a dip in blood pressure during the deepest stage of sleep , which is the bodyâs normal and healthy reaction to sleep. Not having that nighttime dip is a risk factor for heart disease and may increase daytime blood pressure.

Typically people spend 90 minutes to two hours in slow wave sleep per night. A recent study published in Hypertension found that men who got less slow wave sleep each night were a higher risk for hypertension than men who got more deep sleep.

While sleep disorders, like sleep apnea, and age can both affect the amount of deep sleep you get, there are steps you can take to ensure a good nightâs sleep. Getting seven to eight hours of sleep a night, maintaining a consistent sleep schedule and being more active during the day can help improve the quality of your sleep.

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Hard Work While Fatigued Affects Blood Pressure

Date:

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Summary:

When fatigued individuals perceive a task as being achievable and worth doing, they increase their effort to make up for their diminished capability due to fatigue. As a result, blood pressure tends to rise and remain elevated until the task is completed or individuals stop trying because they think success is impossible or too difficult to be justified.

Working hard when fatigued may be admired by many Americans, but it is a virtue that could be harmful to one’s health, according to new research by psychologists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham . The research supports a theory which suggests that exhausted individuals’ cardiovascular systems are forced to work harder when they attempt to complete tasks, such as those encountered on the job or at school.

The research, published in the July issue of the International Journal of Psychophysiology, found that fatigued individuals had larger blood pressure increases than rested individuals under conditions where they viewed success as both possible and worthwhile. Investigators believe the effects were determined by effort on the part of the study participants, said UAB psychologist Rex Wright, Ph.D., who led the study.

In the study, 80 subjects were provided the opportunity to earn a small chance of winning a modest prize by memorizing, in two minutes, two or six nonsense trigrams. Trigrams are meaningless, three-letter sequences, such as AED.

Story Source:

When Should I Call My Doctor About Fatigue

Itâs normal to feel tired now and then. Everyone experiences occasional, brief fatigue due to illness, sleep disturbances, travel or changes in diet or medication. But you should talk to your healthcare provider if youâre tired all the time. Call your provider if:

• Your fatigue lasts longer than a few days
• Youâre having a hard time going to work or performing daily activities.
• There isnât a clear reason for your fatigue.
• It comes on suddenly.
• Youâre older .
• Youâve also been losing weight.

Fatigue can be a sign of a serious health condition. You should seek immediate medical attention if you have fatigue along with other symptoms, such as:

• Shortness of breath or pain in your chest, arm or upper back.
• Fast, pounding, fluttering or irregular heartbeat.
• Headache or vision problems .
• Nausea, vomiting or abdominal pain.
• Muscle weakness.

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Diabetes And Fatigue: Everything You Need To Know

What exactly is fatigue? Is it just being tired after working a long week or not getting enough sleep?

The answer is no.

Fatigue is excessive tiredness that makes carrying out simple tasks difficult and interferes with one or more life functions. Sounds terrible, doesnt it? Well imagine having a chronic illness along with the fatigue. Diabetes and fatigue have a strong relationship, and it can make a persons life very difficult. The following article will discuss the relationship, along with ways to beat and reduce the risk of living with diabetes and fatigue.

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High Blood Pressure Symptoms

Before we get into the details of what conditions affect your blood pressure and what to do about them, here are some high blood pressure symptoms to look out for:

• Edemas/swelling

As you can see, these symptoms can be pretty serious, and thats because they usually come about during a high blood pressure crisis. Thats when your blood pressure is close to or over 180/120 mm Hg. But even 140/90 mm Hg is considered hypertension, with 120/80 mm Hg and up considered at risk . And its usually very difficult to spot blood pressure symptoms for 140/90 mm and up unless it gets to a crisis level.

Still, the underlying causes of hypertension can have their own set of symptoms that you can watch out for. And addressing these causes may save you from having to take blood pressure medication. In fact, regulating your blood pressure is not that hard, and it can make a huge difference to your cardiovascular health and the health of your Cardionomic Circuit.

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Could Blood Pressure Medicine Make You Tired

While its not a common side effect, its possible that medications your doctor has prescribed to may cause tiredness, Dr. Weinberg says.

I usually tell patients, this is not a class of drugs that will 100% make you more tired, she says, but she does hear that complaint from some of her patients.

In those cases, Dr. Weinberg often suggests that patients stop the medicationunder advisement from their doctorand check on fatigue level. Then shell ask the patient to add the medication back in again to confirm whether the fatigue returns. That gives her a good idea of whether the drug is causing the fatigue, she says. And if it is, shell suggest a different class of drugs.

Beta blockers are most commonly associated with tiredness, according to the American Heart Associationand they can also cause insomnia in some people, which leads to fatigue.

Not Much Of A Link Between Hypertension And Fatigue

If a home blood pressure monitor or drug store cuff machine tells you that your numbers are a little high, it can be all too easy to blame your symptoms on elevated blood pressure and call it a day.

But back up.

Sometimes, when people see that their blood pressure numbers are a little abnormal, they tell themselves, Ah, that must be whats going on, but thats not necessarily the case, Dr. Laffin notes.

Its always warranted to have an in-depth discussion with your healthcare provider to figure out: Are these symptoms being driven by your blood pressure? Is it vice versa? Or are they completely unrelated?

And if you havent had your blood pressure taken in a professional medical setting, its definitely worth doing so. Do-it-yourself blood pressure monitors dont always tell the whole story and sometimes, the numbers are skewed. But theyre still a good idea.

Theyre better than nothing, but the accuracy can be questionable, Dr. Laffin says. Theres actually a very standardized process that goes into measuring blood pressure, and its very important in making sure that youre getting an accurate blood pressure reading.

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High Blood Pressure Prevention

In addition to working with your doctor to address health issues that may be causing any fatigue youre having, its also a good idea for all of us to take steps to prevent high blood pressure down the road through l, Dr. Patel says. A daily routine of healthy eating, exercising, sleeping, and stress prevention can improve your overall physical and mental wellbeing and lower your chances of developing high blood pressure, he says. He offers these tips as well:

• Exercise five times a week for 30 minutes

• Eat frequent, small meals that are low in salt, sugar, and anything processed, and avoid red meat as much as possible

• Avoid eating with two hours of bedtime

• Go to bed at the same time and sleep six to eight hours

• If you smoke, stop

• Keep stress in check

If this list seems overwhelming, start with just one change. Once youve mastered that, tackle another on the list. In time youll be on the road to better overall long-term health and wellness.

Sleep Apnea and HBP: The Mayo Clinic. Sleep Apnea. Sleep apnea – Symptoms and causes – Mayo Clinic

High Blood Pressure Factsheet: NHS Inform. About Pulmonary Hypertension.

High Blood Pressure in the United States: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Facts About Hypertension in the United States.

What’s The Impact Of Having High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure is a major risk factor for developing cardiovascular diseases such as:

• coronary heart disease – where the main arteries that supply your heart become clogged up with plaques
• strokes – a serious condition where the blood supply to your brain is interrupted
• heart attacks – a serious condition where the blood supply to part of your heart is blocked

Diabetes and kidney disease are also linked to high blood pressure complications.

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What To Expect At Your Provider’s Office

There is no laboratory test for chronic fatigue syndrome. But your health care provider may use tests to rule out other illnesses. Your provider will go over your symptoms, check your medical history, and do a physical examination.

If you have CFS, your provider may prescribe drugs to treat your symptoms, or suggest herbs, vitamins, or dietary changes to help you. Get plenty of rest, exercise regularly, and learn to pace yourself. Often this combination of treatments will help you get better.

If the usual treatments do not work, your provider may check for other conditions that can cause symptoms similar to those of CFS.

Facts About Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

• The CDC estimates up to 2.5 million Americans have ME/CFS.
• Anyone can get it, including children and teens.
• It’s most common in women in their 40s and 50s.
• Women are more likely to develop it than men.
• Most cases are mild or moderate.
• About 1 in 4 people with the condition have severe symptoms.

If you have mild ME/CFS, you can probably manage on your own. Moderate symptoms can make it hard for you to move around. For example, you might need to sleep in the afternoons.

Severe symptoms can impact your quality of life and abilities as badly as if you had lupus, heart disease, or rheumatoid arthritis.

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Changes In Blood Sugar Levels

Diabetes affects the way the body regulates and uses blood sugar.

When a person eats, the body breaks down food into simple sugars, or glucose. Cells use insulin to absorb glucose from the blood and can then use this for energy.

In people with diabetes, the pancreas does not produce enough insulin, or the body does not use insulin effectively. This causes excess glucose in the blood.

Fatigue and weakness may result when the cells do not get enough glucose. Diabetes medications, such as insulin or metformin, help more of this sugar to move into the cells and prevent it from building to harmful levels in the blood.

A potential side effect of diabetes medications is low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia.

Low blood sugar can also cause fatigue, especially in people who have frequent episodes and do not get enough warning that their blood sugar levels are dropping. A person can still feel fatigued even after treatment for low blood sugar.

While not all of those symptoms account for feelings of fatigue directly, many of them may contribute to an overall feeling of being unwell. These persistent and uncomfortable sensations can have severe mental and physical effects that may lead to the development of fatigue.

Some of the symptoms of diabetes may also disrupt a persons sleep pattern. For example, a person with the condition can wake up several times every night to use the bathroom or get a drink. People with type 2 diabetes have a of developing a sleep disorder.

Fatigue And High Blood Pressure

When you feel tired, its because you either

Does this make sense?

If your pancreas is unable to produce a sufficient amount of insulin, or if you are not reacting properly to insulin, your cells wont receive the right amount of glucose that they need to produce energy.

The result is that you feel tired all the time, you become forgetful, you cant think clearly and many people become moody.

So no sugar rush, but the exact opposite and many times, a sugar crash.

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Children Young People And Me/cfs

ME/CFS can affect people of all ages, including the very young. Young people with ME/CFS, especially children under the age of ten, might have trouble knowing or articulating that something is wrong. They may not realise that their loss of stamina, or other symptoms they are experiencing, are not normal. Alternatively, they may not have the words to describe what they are feeling.

For both younger children and teenagers, schooling can be affected but ME/CFS is not school refusal. While school refusal can often be accompanied by physical complaints , and these complaints may tend to disappear when the young person stays home, the pattern is different with ME/CFS. In a young person with ME/CFS, some symptoms never ease and symptom exacerbation is triggered by activity. In ME/CFS, symptoms are likely to be worse after school attendance, and can reduce with pacing and rest, which includes time away from school or during holidays.

Some young people with ME/CFS can continue to attend school, and others may be too unwell for regular classroom attendance. Parents, healthcare providers, schools and the child or teenager need to work together to come up with a plan for the young persons continued education. This plan needs to take into account the energy limits of ME/CFS. Being creative and flexible is key and might include things like fewer subjects or school from home.

How To Control Chronic Pain

Some instances of chronic pain will never completely go away. Reaching a point where persistent discomfort is manageable starts with getting an accurate diagnosis to determine possible sources of your pain. Management techniques can range from participating in activities that reduce stress and anxiety to physical therapy and alternative treatments such as acupuncture and chiropractic adjustments. Severe cases may require back or neck surgery.

Previous studies have linked chronic pain to higher blood sugar levels in diabetics and an increased risk of developing arthritis. Though there is no simple cure for chronic pain, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and exploring a variety of treatment options is often beneficial.

If youre experiencing chronic neck or back pain, dont hesitate to find a solution for relief as soon as possible. Dr. Hyun Bae and his team of expert surgeons specialize in traditional spinal fusion surgery as well as a variety of alternatives to spinal fusion. Give The Spine Institute a call today at 310-828-7757 and take your first step on the path toward a pain-free life.

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What Is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, is a complicated illness characterized by at least six months of extreme fatigue that is not relieved by rest, and a group of additional symptoms that also are constant for at least six months. In many people with chronic fatigue syndrome, the disorder begins suddenly, often following a flulike infection or an episode of physical or psychological trauma, such as surgery, a traumatic accident or the death of a loved one. In other cases, chronic fatigue syndrome develops gradually. The illness lasts for many months or years, and only a small percentage of people recover full health.

Many people feel tired a lot of the time, and many seek help from their doctors. Most people who experience chronic fatigue are not suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome. Depression and overwork are much more common causes of chronic fatigue.

Several parts of the immune system remain activated for long periods in people with chronic fatigue syndrome. There is growing evidence that some patients with chronic fatigue syndrome have an autoimmune condition: their immune system is attacking particular tissues in the body.

Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome have defects in the ability of cells in their bodies to make energy. Some studies indicate that certain genes are built differently, and that the activity of genes in white blood cells is different, in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.