Thank you for bringing this up. I’m a nurse on a cardiovascular progressive care unit, and we get a handful of young people (40-50s) who come in with “no prior history” having heart attacks or borderline heart attacks.
One of the things I’d note is that most of them have high blood pressure that they didn’t know about. High blood pressure doesn’t feel bad, so they never felt a need to see a doctor. But it is silently damaging arteries, particularly the delicate ones in your heart, kidneys, and brain.
The only way to know if you are developing high blood pressure is to get it checked regularly. Get an automatic blood pressure cuff for your house, or go to your primary care physician once a year. And when they tell you that 140/90 is putting you at higher risk of heart attack, take them seriously.
Thank you for bringing this up. I’m a nurse on a cardiovascular progressive care unit, and we get a handful of young people (40-50s) who come in with “no prior history” having heart attacks or borderline heart attacks.
One of the things I’d note is that most of them have high blood pressure that they didn’t know about. High blood pressure doesn’t feel bad, so they never felt a need to see a doctor. But it is silently damaging arteries, particularly the delicate ones in your heart, kidneys, and brain.
The only way to know if you are developing high blood pressure is to get it checked regularly. Get an automatic blood pressure cuff for your house, or go to your primary care physician once a year. And when they tell you that 140/90 is putting you at higher risk of heart attack, take them seriously.