Blood pressure is the force of the blood pushing against the walls of the arteries. Each time the heart beats, it pumps blood through the arteries. Your blood pressure is at its highest when the heart beats, forcing blood into the arteries. This is called systolic pressure. When the heart is at rest, between beats, your blood pressure falls. This is the diastolic pressure. Blood pressure is always given as two numbers, the systolic and diastolic pressures. Both are important.

The systolic pressure is the first or top number, and the diastolic pressure is the second or bottom number (for example, 120/80). If your blood pressure is 120/80, you say that it is “120 over 80″.

It is important to take steps to keep your blood pressure under control. The treatment goal is to keep blood pressure below 140/90, or even lower for people with other conditions, such as diabetes and kidney disease.

Adopting healthy lifestyle habits is an essential and effective first step in both preventing and controlling high blood pressure. However, if lifestyle changes alone are not effective in keeping your pressure controlled, it may be necessary to take blood pressure medications.

The following types of medications are available to treat high blood pressure:

1. Diuretics: Diuretics are sometimes called water pills because they work in the kidney and flush excess water and sodium from the body, lowering blood pressure.

2. Beta-blockers: Beta-blockers reduce nerve impulses to the heart and blood vessels. This makes the heart beat slower and with less force. As a result of these drugs, the blood pressure drops and the heart works less hard.

3. ACE inhibitors: Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors prevent the formation of a hormone called angiotensin II, which normally causes blood vessels to narrow. The ACE inhibitors cause the vessels to relax and blood pressure goes down.

4. Angiotensin antagonists: Angiotensin antagonists shield blood vessels from angiotensin II. As a result, the vessels become wider and blood pressure goes down.

5. Calcium channel blockers (CCBs): CCBs keep calcium from entering the muscle cells of the heart and blood vessels. This causes the blood vessels to relax and pressure goes down.

6. Alpha-blockers: Alpha-blockers reduce nerve impulses to blood vessels, which allows blood to pass more easily, causing the blood pressure to go down.

7. Alpha-beta-blockers: Alpha-beta-blockers work the same way as alpha-blockers but also slow the heartbeat, as beta-blockers do. As a result of using these drugs, less blood is pumped through the vessels and the blood pressure goes down.

8. Nervous system inhibitors: Nervous system inhibitors relax blood vessels by controlling nerve impulses, and this causes the blood vessels to become wider and the blood pressure to go down.

9. Vasodilators: Vasodilators directly open blood vessels by relaxing the muscles in the vessel walls, causing the blood pressure to go down.

To find out if you have high blood pressure consult your doctor and have a blood pressure test. The test is quick and painless.

To determine which life style changes and medications are appropriate, consult your doctor.

They tell me my diagnosis is pretty common, that millions of Americans suffer with low back pain. I’ve also heard that next to the common cold, missing work from low back pain is the biggest reason. With these two major known facts, I then wondered why getting the correct treatment for low back pain is so difficult.

After being diagnosed with a herniated disc and bone disc degenerative disease, I was immediately scheduled to see a surgeon. The surgeon suggested I have back surgery. To make a long story short, after a lot of prayer, a lot of thought, and after talking to many people who already have had surgery with my same diagnosis, I chose against surgery.

After deciding against surgery, I found I was immediately cast in a different light, by my doctor, and the medical community in general. I found my pain was then not taken seriously. I felt disbelieved about how much I hurt. I actually felt like a drug addict when asking for something for the pain. It appeared my physician felt back surgery was the end all cure all to my back & leg pain.

To the contrary studies have shown, back surgery may actually cause more pain, complications, and even damage that requires more follow up surgery. Knowing physicians and surgeons are already aware of this, it really makes you wonder why they would put you at such risk. I wish some of these healthcare professionals would just once switch places with me for one day living with chronic low back pain.

As a chronic pain sufferer, I’m dedicated to helping other chronic pain sufferers who suffer from pain in any manner.

Why would an article with such an esoteric title be of interest, of importance and relevancy to more than just Pain Management health care workers. Shouldn’t such an article be of more importance and interest in a Professional Journal than it would be to the educated general populous. What is behind the idea of publishing it on the Internet, situated so that many more than just medical minds would come across it by happenstance.

A large percentage of the general population is thought to either listen to, watch, or read any of the many ways the News Media bombards us with what their financial backers’ opinions would have us know. Therefore we must assume that this same population should, by now, understand how the median age of death, in our country as in others, has been prolonged. We attribute this increasing life expectancy, over the previous few centuries, by all of the many scientific advances, by the formation of and stabilization of standardized-religion, and by the many laws of behavior, in-acted to prevent man’s destruction of his/her fellow man/woman.

For these and other reasons, the percentage of the population living over the age of 65 increases with every passing decade and century. At this point I hope that you can begin to better understand the importance of pain control in chronic non-cancer patients. Since the percentage of the population over 65 is getting larger with each passing decade, it is becoming more common place to know or to know of an individual requiring pain control for a chronic non-cancerous problem.

Breakthrough pain in cancer patients is associated with poor outcomes, a greater incidence of hospitalization, more difficult to treat pain syndromes, and, of course, the inevitable patient dissatisfaction with therapy. None of the previous characteristics are found, in general, amongst the non-cancerous patients.

Breakthrough pain in non-cancerous patients is known to be prevalent, severe, and it shares several characteristics with cancer patients, such as that it is typically rapid in onset and frequently encountered. Studies have shown that nearly three quarters of patients with non-cancer pain have significant episodes of breakthrough pain.

For the general population, is not important what the actual treatments are for pain control in chronic non-cancerous patients. What is important for everyone to understand is that a growing part of our general population will be suffering with chronic non-cancerous pain. We need to start to modify and/or drop, when appropriate, our misconceptions of individuals (young and old) that complain of chronic pain that proves to be non-cancerous in origin. We must study how individuals on narcotic therapy do when attempting to continue with accepted normal daily functions. Such functions would include work, play, and care-giving. I feel that we will be surprised how much of a normal life these individuals can live if given the chance.