High Blood Pressure members - HELP!

Low sodium diet is 1500mgs of sodium per day. Track all your food, look at labels. I wasn't quite as bad as you are, but it has really helped me. After 85 days of eating 1500mg to 1800mg of sodium a day, I just clocked in yesterday with a BP of 115/75 down from 135/90 on two BP meds. You can do it.

Watch out for hidden high sodium in things. Store bought bread and baked goods are usually bad. Meat is often injected with salt to plump it up. Don't add salt or salt based seasoning to ANYTHING. Use herbs and spices instead. Garlic and onion powder are my favorites, along with basil and paprika. If you're a person who likes spicy, peppers, cumin and the like can all be substituted.

If you have any more questions, add me and drop me a message. I've been doing this for nearly three months, and I can help you not make the mistakes I did.

Three years ago, I was on the maximum dose of two blood pressure pills. When my doc wanted to add a third, I said to myself, "Nope. That's enough, the two I'm on already make me sick!" So I set out to solve the problem. Turns out excessive uric acid is one of the main causes of hypertension (excluding kidney disease--and my kidneys tested out just fine). High uric acid causes gout (I have gouty arthritis) and other metabolic ailments. While I carry a genetic predisposition to high uric acid, I found out that certain foods increase uric acid (high purine foods) and the consumption of sugar and a high carb diet also cause high uric acid because, as the body breaks down fructose (sucrose, i.e. sugar is 50% fructose) one of the by-products is uric acid which then must be flushed through the kidneys. (One of the b.p. meds I was on actually increases serum uric acid as one of the side effects--but that's another story.)

So I went totally off of sugar (not even any sugar in my coffee) and started restricting my total carbohydrates to between 70-100 grams of non-starchy carbs per day. (Obese people have an ability to efficiently turn high blood glucose into fructose so total carbs must be governed if the blood pressure is going to respond.) Even before I had lost much weight, my blood pressure returned to normal (in about two weeks) and I was able to taper off of both b.p. meds. My doc is agog as most people are stuck on b.p. meds for the rest of their lives. My b.p. reads about 112/72 every morning (I take it at home just to keep tabs on it). The worst thing about taking b.p. meds is that it gives a false sense of security. It does NOT mean that you aren't still in the process of developing CVD (cardio-vascular disease). My mother died of a hemorrhagic stroke even though her b.p. was well medicated and quite low.

I track both my sodium and potassium and try to make sure that my potassium is twice as high as my sodium intake. That means eating a lot of vegetables and some low-fructose fruit like berries and citrus every day. Magnesium is important too (magnesium relaxes the walls of the blood vessels) but eating foods that are high in potassium (vegetables in particular) will ensure that you are getting plenty of magnesium as well (nature tends to package them together). Good luck!

ETA: If you decide to monitor your blood pressure at home, and you have large arms, make sure that you get a large cuff as you will get a falsely high reading if the cuff is too small. My doc was using a medium cuff on me when my arm was larger (before I lost weight)--my b.p. was probably not even as high as he said it was. I use a medium cuff now that my arm is smaller. Make sure your doc uses an appropriately-sized cuff.