Re: Newbies: not following Welcome recommendations?

[Guest guest]

Ok I am up for this I think. 

 

I have read the evolution of PA several times.  I understand more of it each time.  I think it would also be helpful to have a " layman " article.  The first time I read it, even though I had been researching PA online for about a month, I understood only about 10% of the evolution article probably.  For those of us not well versed in medical terminology it is very technical.

 

I have read several of the Conn's stories, and have been fortunate enough to have several group members reach out to me and share their story with me personally.  This has been a HUGE asset for me, because I have been getting the attitude from most Dr.'s I've been dealing with that my condition is " not an emergency. "   It has been nice to know others suffer significantly with it too, and it's ok to want to get timely treatment.

 

I have not submitted my own story yet, because it's taking me awhile to really understand what my story even is.  I have never been one to dwell on my medical problems.  As I gather data from my labs, etc, I will have more of a " complete story " (for example, I complained of fatigue in 2009 and we checked my thyroid, I didn't remember that until I pulled my medical records).  Also, I'm not sure at what stage it is " appropriate " to submit my story...after I've been officially diagnosed, after I have a treatment plan, after I know what type of Conn's I have?  I haven't even had a CT scan yet...

 

I have not studied as much about DASH as I should.  I feel my attitude is " OK, salt is bad.  I need to limit sodium to 1500mg/day & K 4700 mg/day.  Got it. "   I feel like without having answers about my hyperaldo, I'm obsessed with finding answers to that and I can't bring myself to " waste " time right now dissecting the DASH plan.  But this is definitely a goal for the future.  (And I understand this might be the wrong attitude, I'm just trying to be honest). Also, I am all about convenience.  I downloaded a sodium " app " to my iphone and track my sodium that way.  I wonder if there is a DASH app.....

 

I have always measured my BP daily when instructed by my Dr.'s.  I have gone in to my appointments and had it all written down before though, and the Dr.'s don't even glance at it, they just want to know what I've been " running " lately.  So I'll tell them " about 150s/90s " or whatever it is and this satisfies them.  So I stoppped documenting as well.  I started taking my BP daily again after this into because it taught me that we need to be our own advocate and if no one else, I need to care about my BP MYSELF.  I have still not gotten a " listening BP " device and learned to do it, this is somewhat overwhelming to me, but it is a goal for the future.  Especially because I want to learn to listen to my kids' BP.

 

/Conn's Articles of Note/Medications/Bravo spir 1973.pdf  I have skimmed through this article.  It seemed to me that it focuses on spiro as a treatment for PA.  I am not sure if this is necessary because to me, this is common knowledge at this point that spiro is a treatment?  Again, it is a somewhat technical article.

 

Initially I the endocrinology article on treatment of PA was way too overwhelming to me.  But I read it again recently and understood it.  I printed off relevant parts to take to my endo.

 

I don't remember even reading the encouragement of getting a family history, but Dr. Grim reminded us a couple of weeks ago on a thread so I started investigating it, and that is when I found out much of my own family has problems with high BP & low K.

 

The " testing in one day " I appreciated the info but so far it's just depressed me because endo #1 did not do a bit of it and basically just wasted 8 weeks of my life (lol). 

 

I actually started to fill out the survey the first day I signed up, but as I got toward the end of the survery I started thinking " I haven't even officially been diagnosed " and there were a bunch of questions that weren't relevant to me yet so I haven't completed the survey yet.

 

I don't remember seeing Dr. Grim's fee on my original welcome because I initially thought there was no way I could afford it becuase it was probably thousands of dollars (we are very fortunate Dr. Grim is willing to help us for such a reasonable amount!!).

 

Ok, so this is all my feedback!  I figured I was still considered a " newbie " although this group is so amazing and I feel so welcome it feels like it's been years!  But I think I joined just about 5 weeks ago...is that right?? ;-)

 

-VIRGINIA-

 

On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 12:20 PM, Clarence Grim <lowerbp2@...> wrote:

 

My intro recommends going to the JNC site but suspect few do.

Maybe we need a 1 month questionnaire after joining to see how much of the intro was done.

Perhaps some newbies can respond on what they did with the Welcome and what they did not do and why.  

Other suggestions?

Here is the current welcome just to remind everyone.

Welcome to the exciting world of Hyperaldosteronism

 

You are in the right place!

 

I am Dr. CE Grim a retired (well semi-retired) Professor of Medicine and Endocrinology.

 

I have had a long standing interest is Primary Aldosteronism since medical school days when I saw my first patient with Primary Aldosteronism in 1963 as a 4th year medical student.  I did a Nephrology Fellowship at Duke and an Endocrinology and Metabolism Fellowship with Dr. Conn (1969-70).  I have been on the faculty of the University of MO, Indiana Univ, UCLA/ R. Drew, and the Medical College of Wisconsin in Divisions of Nephrology, Endocrinology, Hypertension, Cardiology and Epidemiology.

 

I have published over 240 papers and book chapters in most areas of the broad discipline of High Blood Pressure.  My CV is in our files for details.

 

The GOAL of our group is to teach you and your health care team about the ins and outs of the causes, diagnosis and control of the many forms of hyperaldosteronism.

 

The steps below will introduce you into the fascinating world of high blood pressure, salt and potassium and the role of the adrenal hormone aldosterone in health and disease.  Doing these in sequence will save you time and effort in getting up to speed in taking control of you health and educating your own health care team.  

 

While we can’t make you a doctor we will make you into a pretty good BP doctor-a skill that you will have for life.

 

1.  Overview: Read my article in our files on the evolution of PA (Evolution_of_PA-Grim.pdf ) and take to all members of health care team.  Tell us what stage you believe you are in. This is a brief review of most causes of hyperaldosteronism, high blood pressure, and low potassium (K).

 

Be certain that you and your health care team understand the key role of excess diet salt in HTN and especially in PA.  Without excess salt in the diet, aldosterone cannot do most of its damage.

 

Go to:   http://www.worldactiononsalt.com/evidence/treatment_trials.htm

 

For a state of the art and science discussion of salt and health.

 

2.  Conn's Stories. Other patients with hyperaldosteronism (Conn’s syndrome). Read our Conn's stories in our files and then give us your own in as much detail as you can. Dr. Conn was the first to describe this disease process and the syndrome is named after him. I trained with him and his team in Ann Arbor, MI in 1969-70.  To see others' stories on the Hyperaldosteronism home page, go to  Files/Conn’s Stories.  You'll find instructions in " A - How to put your story here.doc "

Then send us your story in an email and then we will likely ask more questions and make suggestions before you upload it to our files.

 

3.     Hyperaldosteronism and Salt:  The Deadly Duo. In oder for aldosterone to cause its damage one must also eat excess salt in the diet. Thus much of the damage can  be controlled/reversed by lowering salt (sodium) intake and increasing potassium intake. This is the essence of the low sodium DASH eating plan. 

 

 

Eating Plan to control high blood pressure due to hyperaldosteronism and most others with high blood pressure.   This will reduce your need for medications and in many will get your BP and K to goal without meds.. Get the DASH diet book by T. et al, read it and use it:  $8 in paperback at your local bookstore. If they don’t have it ask them to order it for you.  Learning to eat the DASH way will play a major role in your road to good BP and K control and, in many of our folks here, will revolutionize your life. 

 

Go to chapter 9 and do the 14 day challenge.  Tell your Dr you are doing this as your BP may plummet if you are on other meds in only 2-3 days.

 

or 

 

go to http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/hbp/dash/new_dash.pdf

 

download this 64 page booklet free and do the Week on the DASH Diet for 2 weeks.  If you are on BP meds be prepared for a large fall in BP and let your Dr. know you are doing this.

 

Or go to  (but costs money)

 

DASH Diet for Health Program

The DASH Diet for Health Program is designed to help you improve your eating and exercise habits. Twice each week we will provide you with information on our website about food, food preparation, eating out, losing weight, getting fit and much more. In addition to providing new information each week on our website, we create a web page specially for you where you can track progress in areas such as your weight, blood pressure, and exercise.

http://www.dashforhealth.com/

 

I strongly recommend you get the book and read it now!

 

4.  Measure your own BP and insist that your health care team always measures BP correctly with an recently calibrated device: Measure your BP daily so you can see if it is getting better.  If you are taking meds be sure to tell your health care team you are doing this as your BP may plummet to normal quickly.  We recommend you use a device you listen to and will help you learn how to do this.  If this is not something you want to do we can teach a significant other how to do it. See sharedcareinc.com or email to sharedcare@... to order a video on how to do this. If you already have one we will teach you how to teach your health care team how to validate your device.  Your life and health depends on accurate BP measurements. 

 

Go to the amricanheart.org and download the Guidelines for Human Blood Pressure Measurement.  Insist the your health care team do BP the AHA way.  Your life is in the hands of those who measure your BP.  Never trust your life to an automatic BP machine unless you know it is accurate on YOU.  Most devices will read at least 25 mm Hg too high or too low is some people. The only way to know if you are one is to have your and any other automatic devices checked for accuracy in you. Instructions for doing this are in our files.

 

5.  Genetics and your BP:  Go to 

familyhistory.hhs.gov 

and do your detailed family medical history so we can review with you to help Dx familial causes of high blood pressure and heart disease.  If BP runs in your family you may save lives in your family by checking their BP yourself.  There is a brief discussion of this in my Evolution Article.

 

6.  How to DX and treat PA:  Go to our file

/Conn's Articles of Note/Medications/Bravo spir 1973.pdf and read this article and take to your health care team.  It is old but still one of the best in the medical management of PA.

 

Also see our file from the Endocrine Society Guidelines on PA. 

 

Dr. Grim's Perfect Primary Aldosteronism Blood and Urine Testing to diagnose PA in one day with the testing for Pheochromocytoma and Cushing's thrown in.

 

1. Eat a high salt diet for 2 weeks-at least 4000 mg of Na  a day.

2. No BP meds in last 4-12 weeks depending on meds and Drs advice.

3. Collect accurate 24 hr urine for Na, K and creatinine, aldosterone, urinary free cortisol and catecholamines.  See which ones your lab can do all in the same sample.  Do not lose a drop of this liquid gold.  It is impossible to interpret the plasma renin and aldosterone and urine aldosterone and cortisol without this information. 

4. The morning you finish the 24 hr urine have fasting blood drawn for renin, aldosterone and K using our guidelines to get an accurate K.  Try to get this done about 1-4 hours after you have been out of bed.  Be sure the laboratory orders and does aldosterone NOT aldolase.

5. Send us the results with the normal values for your lab.

6. If you ever have a salt (saline) infusion test for PA be certain to ask them to measure how much you pee during the 4 hours of the infusion. If it is 1-1.5 liter of urine it strongly suggests that you may have PA.  If more tha 1.5 L you almost certainly have PA.  I call this Dr. Grim’s “Quick Pee Test” for PA.

 

7.  Our PA Registry:  If you have been Dxed with PA already and are on Rx or have had surgery please go

 

 to http://www.kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=HIJIO_f2685379 

 

and complete our survey with as much information as you know.  If there is some information you don't know ask us and we will help.  If you need to update this as you journey thru the diagnostic/treatment process you can add another entry but label it as Nameyymmdd.  For example today 5/1/12 for me would be Grim120521.  This way of writing the date is an ever increasing number and will allow us and you to sort your multiple entries into a dated order. We are working on a more extensive database.

 

8.     Learn the language:  If you are new to medical lingo then download the acroyms from 

 

bloodpressureline/message/29186

9.  Salt and high blood pressure:  To learn the state of the science of salt and blood pressure please spend some time looking at 

http://www.worldactiononsalt.com/evidence/treatment_trials.htm

10. Become a HBP expert consumer: Expect that it will take at least several weeks to get all this digested and to learn the new language of high blood pressure health care.  As most doctors and nurses in practice have had very little training in high blood pressure you must become an expert yourself.  For example most have never had anyone listen with them with a double stethoscope to verify that they can hear BP sounds.

 

We cannot make you a doctor but we will make you a pretty good BP doctor.

11. Learn as much as you can about how High Blood Pressure should be diagnosed and managed:

 

Go to nih.gov and download and read the latest Joint National Commission (JNC) Report to get an overview on current guidelines.  I have always asked all my staff (including secretaries) to read this so they can communicate the importance of high blood pressure to my patients.  

Then:  get (and study) the Hypertension Primer from americanheart.org. This is the most up-to-date compendium of what is known about high blood pressure and what every Dr. should know when they graduate from Medical School.  Every chapter is only 2-3 pages.  Read one chapter every week-night and you will finish it in about a year.  I am working on a reading guide for lay people for the Primer.  Stay tuned.

12.     Ask us questions:  Ask any questions about high blood pressure you want answered.  That is what we are here for.

13.     One-on-one Consulting:  I can provide individual consulting if you do not want to go public.  If you want individual one-on-one consulting for you and your medical care team contract me directly at lowerbp2@.... My consulting fee is $500 for one year access to my expertise e-mail or by iChat or Skype or snail mail. 

May your pressure be low!

Clarence E. Grim BS, MS, MD, FACP, FACC, FASH.

Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, and High Blood Pressure

 

Specializing in Primary Aldosteronism and Difficult to Control High Blood Pressure.

On May 11, 2012, at 12:12 PM, wrote:

 

Sorry, I forgot to include the address!http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/hypertension/jnc7card.htmYou can order up to 10 laminated cards!

> > > If so award him/her this reference card! (Point out the " Assess for > > Identifiable Causes of Hypertension " for them!) Maybe if they looked > > at this everyday they would identify more cases!

> >> >>

[Guest guest]

Thanks for he update. Remember you are learning a new language. And that Takes time. Keep at it. When I have some time I will try to work on more lay friendly article but I think reading thru the article several times is needed even for medical folks. I recommend using a pencil and paper to draw the figures. I do have an animated ppt with it but no narration. Perhaps that would be better?May your pressure be low!CE Grim MS, MDSpecializing in DifficultHypertensionOn May 12, 2012, at 10:09, Virginia Wall <virgwall@...> wrote:

Ok I am up for this I think.

I have read the evolution of PA several times. I understand more of it each time. I think it would also be helpful to have a "layman" article. The first time I read it, even though I had been researching PA online for about a month, I understood only about 10% of the evolution article probably. For those of us not well versed in medical terminology it is very technical.

I have read several of the Conn's stories, and have been fortunate enough to have several group members reach out to me and share their story with me personally. This has been a HUGE asset for me, because I have been getting the attitude from most Dr.'s I've been dealing with that my condition is "not an emergency." It has been nice to know others suffer significantly with it too, and it's ok to want to get timely treatment.

I have not submitted my own story yet, because it's taking me awhile to really understand what my story even is. I have never been one to dwell on my medical problems. As I gather data from my labs, etc, I will have more of a "complete story" (for example, I complained of fatigue in 2009 and we checked my thyroid, I didn't remember that until I pulled my medical records). Also, I'm not sure at what stage it is "appropriate" to submit my story...after I've been officially diagnosed, after I have a treatment plan, after I know what type of Conn's I have? I haven't even had a CT scan yet...

I have not studied as much about DASH as I should. I feel my attitude is "OK, salt is bad. I need to limit sodium to 1500mg/day & K 4700 mg/day. Got it." I feel like without having answers about my hyperaldo, I'm obsessed with finding answers to that and I can't bring myself to "waste" time right now dissecting the DASH plan. But this is definitely a goal for the future. (And I understand this might be the wrong attitude, I'm just trying to be honest). Also, I am all about convenience. I downloaded a sodium "app" to my iphone and track my sodium that way. I wonder if there is a DASH app.....

I have always measured my BP daily when instructed by my Dr.'s. I have gone in to my appointments and had it all written down before though, and the Dr.'s don't even glance at it, they just want to know what I've been "running" lately. So I'll tell them "about 150s/90s" or whatever it is and this satisfies them. So I stoppped documenting as well. I started taking my BP daily again after this into because it taught me that we need to be our own advocate and if no one else, I need to care about my BP MYSELF. I have still not gotten a "listening BP" device and learned to do it, this is somewhat overwhelming to me, but it is a goal for the future. Especially because I want to learn to listen to my kids' BP.

/Conn's Articles of Note/Medications/Bravo spir 1973.pdf I have skimmed through this article. It seemed to me that it focuses on spiro as a treatment for PA. I am not sure if this is necessary because to me, this is common knowledge at this point that spiro is a treatment? Again, it is a somewhat technical article.

Initially I the endocrinology article on treatment of PA was way too overwhelming to me. But I read it again recently and understood it. I printed off relevant parts to take to my endo.

I don't remember even reading the encouragement of getting a family history, but Dr. Grim reminded us a couple of weeks ago on a thread so I started investigating it, and that is when I found out much of my own family has problems with high BP & low K.

The "testing in one day" I appreciated the info but so far it's just depressed me because endo #1 did not do a bit of it and basically just wasted 8 weeks of my life (lol).

I actually started to fill out the survey the first day I signed up, but as I got toward the end of the survery I started thinking "I haven't even officially been diagnosed" and there were a bunch of questions that weren't relevant to me yet so I haven't completed the survey yet.

I don't remember seeing Dr. Grim's fee on my original welcome because I initially thought there was no way I could afford it becuase it was probably thousands of dollars (we are very fortunate Dr. Grim is willing to help us for such a reasonable amount!!).

Ok, so this is all my feedback! I figured I was still considered a "newbie" although this group is so amazing and I feel so welcome it feels like it's been years! But I think I joined just about 5 weeks ago...is that right?? ;-)

-VIRGINIA-

On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 12:20 PM, Clarence Grim <lowerbp2@...> wrote:

My intro recommends going to the JNC site but suspect few do.

Maybe we need a 1 month questionnaire after joining to see how much of the intro was done.

Perhaps some newbies can respond on what they did with the Welcome and what they did not do and why.

Other suggestions?

Here is the current welcome just to remind everyone.

Welcome to the exciting world of Hyperaldosteronism

You are in the right place!

I am Dr. CE Grim a retired (well semi-retired) Professor of Medicine and Endocrinology.

I have had a long standing interest is Primary Aldosteronism since medical school days when I saw my first patient with Primary Aldosteronism in 1963 as a 4th year medical student. I did a Nephrology Fellowship at Duke and an Endocrinology and Metabolism Fellowship with Dr. Conn (1969-70). I have been on the faculty of the University of MO, Indiana Univ, UCLA/ R. Drew, and the Medical College of Wisconsin in Divisions of Nephrology, Endocrinology, Hypertension, Cardiology and Epidemiology.

I have published over 240 papers and book chapters in most areas of the broad discipline of High Blood Pressure. My CV is in our files for details.

The GOAL of our group is to teach you and your health care team about the ins and outs of the causes, diagnosis and control of the many forms of hyperaldosteronism.

The steps below will introduce you into the fascinating world of high blood pressure, salt and potassium and the role of the adrenal hormone aldosterone in health and disease. Doing these in sequence will save you time and effort in getting up to speed in taking control of you health and educating your own health care team.

While we can’t make you a doctor we will make you into a pretty good BP doctor-a skill that you will have for life.

1. Overview: Read my article in our files on the evolution of PA (Evolution_of_PA-Grim.pdf ) and take to all members of health care team. Tell us what stage you believe you are in. This is a brief review of most causes of hyperaldosteronism, high blood pressure, and low potassium (K).

Be certain that you and your health care team understand the key role of excess diet salt in HTN and especially in PA. Without excess salt in the diet, aldosterone cannot do most of its damage.

Go to: http://www.worldactiononsalt.com/evidence/treatment_trials.htm

For a state of the art and science discussion of salt and health.

2. Conn's Stories. Other patients with hyperaldosteronism (Conn’s syndrome). Read our Conn's stories in our files and then give us your own in as much detail as you can. Dr. Conn was the first to describe this disease process and the syndrome is named after him. I trained with him and his team in Ann Arbor, MI in 1969-70. To see others' stories on the Hyperaldosteronism home page, go to Files/Conn’s Stories. You'll find instructions in "A - How to put your story here.doc "

Then send us your story in an email and then we will likely ask more questions and make suggestions before you upload it to our files.

3. Hyperaldosteronism and Salt: The Deadly Duo. In oder for aldosterone to cause its damage one must also eat excess salt in the diet. Thus much of the damage can be controlled/reversed by lowering salt (sodium) intake and increasing potassium intake. This is the essence of the low sodium DASH eating plan.

Eating Plan to control high blood pressure due to hyperaldosteronism and most others with high blood pressure. This will reduce your need for medications and in many will get your BP and K to goal without meds.. Get the DASH diet book by T. et al, read it and use it: $8 in paperback at your local bookstore. If they don’t have it ask them to order it for you. Learning to eat the DASH way will play a major role in your road to good BP and K control and, in many of our folks here, will revolutionize your life.

Go to chapter 9 and do the 14 day challenge. Tell your Dr you are doing this as your BP may plummet if you are on other meds in only 2-3 days.

or

go to http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/hbp/dash/new_dash.pdf

download this 64 page booklet free and do the Week on the DASH Diet for 2 weeks. If you are on BP meds be prepared for a large fall in BP and let your Dr. know you are doing this.

Or go to (but costs money)

DASH Diet for Health Program

The DASH Diet for Health Program is designed to help you improve your eating and exercise habits. Twice each week we will provide you with information on our website about food, food preparation, eating out, losing weight, getting fit and much more. In addition to providing new information each week on our website, we create a web page specially for you where you can track progress in areas such as your weight, blood pressure, and exercise.

http://www.dashforhealth.com/

I strongly recommend you get the book and read it now!

4. Measure your own BP and insist that your health care team always measures BP correctly with an recently calibrated device: Measure your BP daily so you can see if it is getting better. If you are taking meds be sure to tell your health care team you are doing this as your BP may plummet to normal quickly. We recommend you use a device you listen to and will help you learn how to do this. If this is not something you want to do we can teach a significant other how to do it. See sharedcareinc.com or email to sharedcare@... to order a video on how to do this. If you already have one we will teach you how to teach your health care team how to validate your device. Your life and health depends on accurate BP measurements.

Go to the amricanheart.org and download the Guidelines for Human Blood Pressure Measurement. Insist the your health care team do BP the AHA way. Your life is in the hands of those who measure your BP. Never trust your life to an automatic BP machine unless you know it is accurate on YOU. Most devices will read at least 25 mm Hg too high or too low is some people. The only way to know if you are one is to have your and any other automatic devices checked for accuracy in you. Instructions for doing this are in our files.

5. Genetics and your BP: Go to

familyhistory.hhs.gov

and do your detailed family medical history so we can review with you to help Dx familial causes of high blood pressure and heart disease. If BP runs in your family you may save lives in your family by checking their BP yourself. There is a brief discussion of this in my Evolution Article.

6. How to DX and treat PA: Go to our file

/Conn's Articles of Note/Medications/Bravo spir 1973.pdf and read this article and take to your health care team. It is old but still one of the best in the medical management of PA.

Also see our file from the Endocrine Society Guidelines on PA.

Dr. Grim's Perfect Primary Aldosteronism Blood and Urine Testing to diagnose PA in one day with the testing for Pheochromocytoma and Cushing's thrown in.

1. Eat a high salt diet for 2 weeks-at least 4000 mg of Na a day.

2. No BP meds in last 4-12 weeks depending on meds and Drs advice.

3. Collect accurate 24 hr urine for Na, K and creatinine, aldosterone, urinary free cortisol and catecholamines. See which ones your lab can do all in the same sample. Do not lose a drop of this liquid gold. It is impossible to interpret the plasma renin and aldosterone and urine aldosterone and cortisol without this information.

4. The morning you finish the 24 hr urine have fasting blood drawn for renin, aldosterone and K using our guidelines to get an accurate K. Try to get this done about 1-4 hours after you have been out of bed. Be sure the laboratory orders and does aldosterone NOT aldolase.

5. Send us the results with the normal values for your lab.

6. If you ever have a salt (saline) infusion test for PA be certain to ask them to measure how much you pee during the 4 hours of the infusion. If it is 1-1.5 liter of urine it strongly suggests that you may have PA. If more tha 1.5 L you almost certainly have PA. I call this Dr. Grim’s “Quick Pee Test†for PA.

7. Our PA Registry: If you have been Dxed with PA already and are on Rx or have had surgery please go

to http://www.kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=HIJIO_f2685379

and complete our survey with as much information as you know. If there is some information you don't know ask us and we will help. If you need to update this as you journey thru the diagnostic/treatment process you can add another entry but label it as Nameyymmdd. For example today 5/1/12 for me would be Grim120521. This way of writing the date is an ever increasing number and will allow us and you to sort your multiple entries into a dated order. We are working on a more extensive database.

8. Learn the language: If you are new to medical lingo then download the acroyms from

bloodpressureline/message/29186

9. Salt and high blood pressure: To learn the state of the science of salt and blood pressure please spend some time looking at

http://www.worldactiononsalt.com/evidence/treatment_trials.htm

10. Become a HBP expert consumer: Expect that it will take at least several weeks to get all this digested and to learn the new language of high blood pressure health care. As most doctors and nurses in practice have had very little training in high blood pressure you must become an expert yourself. For example most have never had anyone listen with them with a double stethoscope to verify that they can hear BP sounds.

We cannot make you a doctor but we will make you a pretty good BP doctor.

11. Learn as much as you can about how High Blood Pressure should be diagnosed and managed:

Go to nih.gov and download and read the latest Joint National Commission (JNC) Report to get an overview on current guidelines. I have always asked all my staff (including secretaries) to read this so they can communicate the importance of high blood pressure to my patients.

Then: get (and study) the Hypertension Primer from americanheart.org. This is the most up-to-date compendium of what is known about high blood pressure and what every Dr. should know when they graduate from Medical School. Every chapter is only 2-3 pages. Read one chapter every week-night and you will finish it in about a year. I am working on a reading guide for lay people for the Primer. Stay tuned.

12. Ask us questions: Ask any questions about high blood pressure you want answered. That is what we are here for.

13. One-on-one Consulting: I can provide individual consulting if you do not want to go public. If you want individual one-on-one consulting for you and your medical care team contract me directly at lowerbp2@.... My consulting fee is $500 for one year access to my expertise e-mail or by iChat or Skype or snail mail.

May your pressure be low!

Clarence E. Grim BS, MS, MD, FACP, FACC, FASH.

Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, and High Blood Pressure

Specializing in Primary Aldosteronism and Difficult to Control High Blood Pressure.

On May 11, 2012, at 12:12 PM, wrote:

Sorry, I forgot to include the address!http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/hypertension/jnc7card.htmYou can order up to 10 laminated cards!

> > > If so award him/her this reference card! (Point out the "Assess for > > Identifiable Causes of Hypertension" for them!) Maybe if they looked > > at this everyday they would identify more cases!

> >> >>