Does HP only effect certain people?

[Jason27]

My dad puts a TON of salt on everything. He is in his 50's, looks like he is 30 years old, doesn't have grey hair or wrinkles. He eats all of the fast food and puts so much salt on popcorn that it is uneatable. He told me that the doctors are afraid to check his blood pressure since it is so high lol. However he has not one health problem at all and seems normal. My BP was 166/115 last week and when I get up I can feel the blood trying to circulate throughout my body as if my whole body is "asleep". Especially when I sleep on my arm my whole arm falls asleep and takes a few minutes to get the feeling back into it.

I do not smoke or drink, I barely eat anything now but fruits and drink a lot of water, I lost over 30 pounds and try to get a lot of cardio, but I still feel "stiff". Even when I do relax, the second I get back to work I get a headache right away and don't feel like doing anything. I am curious to know if some people are normal with HP and that it only effects certain people?

[Uff-Da!]

Living with serious high blood pressure is like walking a tightrope. Some people may do it longer than others without falling, but the risk of falling is one whale of a lot higher for those who walk that tightrope than for those who stay safely on the ground.

If your BP gets to 166/115 frequently you are seriously at risk and need to be on medication in addition to making lifestyle changes. In fact, if your BP averages more than a systolic of 139 or diastolic of 89, you should make serious efforts to bring it down with lifestyle changes and if unable to do so, get on medication. Why play with dynamite and risk a stroke?

Regarding the salt, though, some people are salt-sensitive and some are not. Decreasing the salt helps a lot of people reduce BP, but not everyone by a long shot.

[Mari526]

It would be interesting to know what your dad's blood pressure really is, I don't think he can eat the way he does without it catching up to him at some point.
It's good that you lost weight, but if you're only eating fruit and drinking water then you are probably undernourished. It would be a good idea for you to follow a cardiac diet like the Dash diet. Your body needs to be nutritionally balanced in order to work properly.

[Jason27]

Man it is stressful trying to be not be stressed. The reason it is hard for me to exercise now is because there is no motivation. Six years ago I was in excellent shape since I used to work out 8 hours per day. The things that motivated me to stay in shape was that I was younger so girls my age only cared about a handsome man that they could show off. Another major reason was due to my boredom I used to play sports on my free time, and I used to model to see how ripped I can get.

I no longer do those things all I do is work from home so it is hard to get motivated to work out hard. Plus I have knee pain so that prevents me from working out strenuously as well like playing basketball. I would get an MRI but my health insurance - Bluecross Blueshield tries their best to get out of paying for anything. So I am afraid they would decline paying and leave me with a $3000 medical bill from an MRI.