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Archive for November, 2009

High Blood Pressure Treatments and Medication

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

Regardless of race, age, or gender, anyone can develop high blood pressure. It is estimated that one in every four American adults has high blood pressure. Once high blood pressure develops, it usually lasts a lifetime. You can prevent and control high blood pressure by taking action. The causes of high blood pressure vary. Causes may include narrowing of the arteries, a greater than normal volume of blood, or the heart beating faster or more forcefully than it should. Any of these conditions will cause increased pressure against the artery walls.

Excess weight is a large factor in high blood pressure. Though many people who are not obese suffer from the condition, it’s three times more likely that those who are overweight will develop the condition. Obesity starts at 20% above the ideal weight for your height and bone structure. However, sometimes a small weight loss of five to ten pounds will reduce blood pressure to within the normal range. If you have high blood pressure and are overweight, try to get as close to your recommended body weight as possible.

The key to lowering blood pressure by walking is to walk briskly, swinging your arms. Start by walking a quarter mile and build up the length of the walks to a mile. You will be surprised at how much your blood pressure lowers after a regular routine of walking daily for two weeks to a month. The reason that exercise reduces high blood pressure is that it opens blood vessels and that makes the blood pressure come down. Even though blood pressure goes up during exercise, it drops when the exercise ends. Then when it goes back up, it doesn’t reach such a high level.

Another important measure for you health is to not smoke: While cigarette smoking is not directly related to high blood pressure, it increases you risk of heart attack and stroke. As your body weight increases, your blood pressure rises. In fact, being overweight can make you two to six times more likely to develop high blood pressure than if you are at your desirable weight. Keeping your weight in the desirable range is not only important to prevent high blood pressure but also for your overall health and well-being.

The high blood pressure treatment is one of the most important areas of modern medicine. Good quality care and blood pressure treatment can reduce the risk of death, the risk of stroke and the risk of heart attack or coronary disease. If you are taking medication to lower your blood pressure but you are still not meeting your blood pressure goal. Talk to your doctor about what blood pressure numbers are right for you and if Tekturna HCT and Tekturna may be an option.

Tekturna and Tekturna HCT are prescription medications for adults used to treat high blood pressure. They can be used alone or in combination with other high blood pressure medications. It is not known whether additive effects are present when Tekturna or Tekturna HCT are used in combination with types of medications called ACE inhibitors or beta blockers. It’s an innovative new blood pressure treatment that works differently from other medicines available today and targets a key source that may contribute to high blood pressure.

Kidney Transplant

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

A kidney transplant is a surgical procedure in which a healthy donated kidney is transplanted into your body. A successful kidney transplant will allow you to return to a more normal lifestyle and will free you from dialysis treatments. However, a kidney transplant is not a cure. It is the treatment of choice for kidney failure for those who are considered suitable candidates for a transplant.

To find out if you are a candidate, your healthcare team will perform a series of tests as part of a complete medical assessment. Kidney transplantation is typically classified as deceased-donor (formerly known as cadaveric) or living-donor transplantation depending on the source of the recipient organ.

Living donors are carefully evaluated to make sure they are medically and psychologically able to donate their kidneys for kidney transplant. The living donor transplant used to be done via an open procedure but it is now increasingly done through laparoscopic surgery, which is easier to tolerate. Kidneys from living donors have a better success rate than do kidneys from deceased donors.

Kidney transplant from deceased donors can come from those whose hearts are still beating but are brain dead, as well as from non-heartbeating donors. The kidney can survive on ice for several hours before transplant so that technically, a person can be deceased and still donate their kidneys. The kidney is then kept in a cold solution prior to donation. The best organs for kidney transplant come from the brain dead donors.

Doctors judge compatibility for kidney transplant by assessing the ABO blood type of the donor and recipient as well as the HLA and minor antigens. If many of these match, the risk of rejecting the transplant and further dialysis is much decreased. In addition, immunosuppressants are used to keep the immune system in check. In the US, only about 17% of transplants have no HLA mismatch whatsoever. This improves the success rate remarkably.

Because kidneys can be kept cold for several hours, the kidney transplant is usually done in a different place from where it was harvested. In addition, the kidney is also placed in a different place from where a normal kidney would be. The most common spot for kidney transplant is the iliac fossa in the lower abdomen. The blood supply must come from somewhere other than the renal artery.

In situations where the kidney transplant recipient is a diabetic, the pancreas is also sometimes transplanted at the same time in order to turn around some of the diabetes the individual has. This almost always requires a deceased donor although partial pancreas transplants in living donors has been done. The patient can also receive a kidney transplant first, followed by a pancreas transplant at a later date.

People who receive a transplant must take medication and be monitored by a physician who specializes in kidney disease (nephrologist) for the rest of their lives. That’s reason you should know about myfortic® and CellCept®, it delivers the same highly effective immunosuppressive drug called mycophenolic acid (MPA). The difference between myfortic and CellCept is that myfortic is an enteric-coated formulation of MPA in a delayed-release tablet. If you want to get some excellent resources on kidney, please visit MyFortic.com to learn about myfortic (mycophenolic acid) a kidney transplant medication , and find information on kidney transplant.