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Correct Blood Pressure Treatment for Diabetics
Treatment of high blood pressure is very important especially for diabetics, because elevated blood pressure leads to increased risk for problems with kidneys, heart attack or even stroke.
Patients should ask their healthcare providers: What is my blood pressure goal? Am I at goal? If I am not, what should we do about it? This means that when you are visiting a doctor the first thing she should do is measuring your blood pressure and only after it deciding other problems.
HealthDay News wrote that most diabetics with high blood pressure have only a 50% probability that their doctors will offer to change their treatment for the matching one.
"In our research we wanted to understand when doctors change treatment for blood pressure in people with diabetes," said Dr. Eve Kerr, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School.
"We found that primary-care providers do this in only about 50 percent of the time. And this shows some improvement for these figures, because previously the chance was only 20-30% ," said Kerr.
For the study, Kerr and her colleagues questioned 1,169 people with diabetes who had high blood pressure, which is defined as 140/90 mm Hg or higher and received care from the U.S. Veterans Administration during a one year. The study has shown that49% had their blood pressure treatment changed during a clinic visit.
As a conclusion: blood pressure is getting more attention in diabetic patients than it has in the past, which is a very good thing. However for the moment most doctors do not have systematic approach to dealing with high blood pressure and to determine if it is necessary to change treatment. That is the reason why so many diabetics with high blood pressure get inadequate treatment.
