Detecting Heart Disease

Cardiac arrest and strokes do most of their damage during the first hours from the morning as we awaken. That is when they find and incapacitate most of their victims. But knowledge is power, and most ever, doctors now know there’s one silent link to many morning life-threatening emergencies – morning hypertension.

What is morning hypertension? It’s a “morning surge” of your blood pressure levels that generally occurs within the first two hours after you awaken. If your blood pressure readings tend to rise above normal levels very first thing each morning and level off over the course of your day, you may have this ticking time bomb inside you.

How Do I Know If I Have Morning Hypertension?
Do not think that you will just know. Remember, hypertension is known as the silent killer for a reason. You may have no symptoms that your pressure typically rises whenever you do in the morning.
So how will you know? Make it a habit to measure your hypertension inside the first couple of hours after you wake up. Record your results and average them not less than a week.

Morning rates that exceed 135/85 mmHg throughout the first two hours once you rise need further attention. The bottom line is to know the main difference involving the morning and evening pressure rates. Which means you have to monitor your pressure levels at night too.

Doctors consider the difference between your blood pressure level readings over the last 2 hours before retiring and your morning levels throughout the first couple of hours after rising to assess whether you’ve morning hypertension. A morning surge will typically visit a rise of 20 mmHg or more in the evening readings. One study found that systolic blood pressure level which was just 10 mmHg higher in morning readings than in evening readings would be a strong independent predictor of strokes.

Why you have My Morning High Blood Pressure?
Researchers are not quite sure. Several things might be responsible: problems sleeping, hypertension which has not been well-regulated, or an adrenal gland tumor are some of the more common suspects.

Who’s Most at Risk for Morning Surges?
If you curently have hypertension that isn’t in check, you’re more at risk for the dangerous elevated morning hypertension (hbp). The longer you are on antihypertensive medications, the greater your risk increases. Additional factors that increase your risk:

You are older.
You are diabetic.
You drink heavily.
You smoke.

Just like other kinds of hbp, making changes in lifestyle (helpful tips, quit smoking, reduce drinking, exercise) can ease the threat of morning surges.

What Must i Do Next?
Should you detect a pattern of morning surges inside your pressure rates, get your doctor involved immediately. Remember, morning hypertension means a heightened risk for morning heart attacks and strokes, so your doctor may wish to focus on decreasing that threat. This may mean supplementing the blood pressure management treatment you’ve already commenced.

It is important that you simply monitor your morning and evening pressure rates at home everyday, as this will give you the data you need to identify and stop a silent killer in its tracks.