high blood pressure

[MrsC999]

Hi. Does anyone know if the summer berry water flavouring could possibly cause high blood pressure? My friend is due to have an operation next week on her foot but her blood pressure has gone through the roof and it might not go ahead. She's never had a blood pressure problem before but has been drinking up to 4 litres of water a day with flavouring for the last 12 weeks. We're now micro analysing everything to find a possible cause.
Thanks
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[Lily]

I sincerely doubt it's the water flavouring. But a couple of other questions first - is your friend also doing Cambridge? Or a low carb diet? Low carb diets generally bring down blood pressure.

If your friend isn't doing low carb or Cambridge, then believe it or not, that 4 litre water consumption is probably causing at least part of the problem. If you drink more water, there's more fluid in your veins and arteries and when your body's not used to that, it can take a while to get used to dealing with it properly. If your friend drank lots of water shortly before having a BP check, the reading would be higher than usual!

You say this is a new thing - has your friend recently had a normal BP reading?

 

[MrsC999]

She's been doing Cambridge. But had more off days than strict ones. Her blood pressure was normal at the end of January and had never been high prior to that. She started CD middle of Jan.

 

[Lily]

Right. Then it could be as simple as what happens when you go from eating few carbs to lots of carbs and back again on a regular basis. I eat predominantly low carb these days and boy, do I notice when I do indulge in carbs - my heart starts pounding in my ears and I get much more easily out of breath doing simple things like climbing stairs. I've never used a monitor to check (cos when I'm eating carbs I'm usually in deep denial that it's doing me any harm ) but I'd wager that my blood pressure goes up when I eat carbs (after a spell of being on Cambridge or doing low carb).

Do you know how high her BP was? It could've been a touch of 'white coat syndrome' too - there are a lot of people who simply find the whole business of going to the doctors and hospitals anxiety-inducing - and find their blood pressure goes up quite a bit as a result. It's only when BP stays consistently high that doctors get very concerned.

 

[MrsC999]

Hi Lily.
Last reading was 158 over 100. I must admit I've no idea what normal is. But that was the third high reading this week. Her op is booked for Wed but if her blood pressure is not normal on both Monday and Tuesday then it won't go ahead... And the stress of that won't be helping her either
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