Jamie Brown is not who you would expect to find at the QE2 Health Sciences Centre Hypertension Clinic.
“I eat fairly well. I exercise probably four or five times a week. I play various sports,” says Brown. “I was a varsity athlete so I’ve played sports my entire life.”
The 29-year-old didn’t know about her hypertension until she checked her blood pressure at a pharmacy.
“I didn’t have any symptoms. I felt fine,” she says. “I was just actually waiting the 20 minutes I needed to wait and I thought I should check it.”
Jackie Jayasinghe, a nurse practitioner at the clinic, says this isn’t uncommon.
“It’s known as the silent killer because often times people will not have symptoms and the only way to sort out whether or not you do have high blood pressure in most cases is to get your blood pressure checked,” says Jayasinghe.
Lifestyle is a key component of controlling high blood pressure.
“Reducing your salt intake, not being overweight, being physically active,” says Jayasinghe. “ All of those things can be the equivalent of two blood pressure medications.”
Many of the clinic’s patients, like Brown, have difficult to treat hypertension where lifestyle changes aren’t enough. In those cases, Clinic Director Dr. Rosario Rebello says extensive testing is required to find the cause.
“Predominantly this can be from the kidneys or from a little gland that sits on top of the kidneys called the adrenal gland,” says Dr. Rebello. “It normally produces hormones, but when it produces them in excess, this can cause high blood pressure.”
“I have high aldosterone levels in my adrenal glands, and they are causing my blood pressure to go up and my potassium to go down,” says Brown.
Brown is on medication and her hypertension is now under control.
Jayasinghe says checking your blood pressure is a crucial first step in the fight against hypertension.
“It’s a very non-invasive, inexpensive diagnostic tool and we can’t help people who have high blood pressure unless they actually get diagnosed and treated,” says Jayasinghe.
