How To Remember Taking Your Blood Pressure Medications
Knowing that you have a high blood pressure condition is half the battle one. What follows is a lifetime of carefully ensuring that you have your BP well managed and under control. Doctors find enough trouble with patients falling to maintain their BP schedules. Some patients altogether forget to take their BP meds, some abscond because they are feeling much better others simply abandon the drug regimen due to side effects. Whichever route a person chooses away from taking drug the reality of the matter is that resistant hypertension may take over. This is hypertension that fails to respond to medications.
To better understand the importance of remembering to take medication, it is worthwhile noting that hypertension as a condition is not curable. This specifically applies to essential hypertension whose causes are not known in 90 to 95 percent of all hypertension cases. In the case of secondary hypertension, the causes are known and are usually underlying medical disorders such as diabetes, kidney disease and others. Once these underlying conditions are addressed the elevated BP often also disappears within a relatively short period of time. When left unchecked or uncontrolled, essential hypertension will lead to hypertension end-stages such as heart failure, stroke and even blindness in some people.
Considering these terrible yet avoidable final effects untreated of high BP, it is more than imperative for you to remember taking your BP drugs. The following are some common steps that you can take to remember taking your drugs;
1. Put sticky notes in places that you frequently visit reminding you to take your medications. These places will include the kitchen, bathroom mirror and front door.
2. Find a partner who also is on daily medication so that you can remind one another.
3. If you are a technology savvy you may also set-up an auto SMS or email reminder that comes to your inbox daily. There are many services like these online today. In fact in developing countries SMS service is proving very effective in the medical filed especially to do with prescription drugs.
4. Keep your anti-hypertensive drugs next to you bed.
5. If you take your BP right after brushing your teeth keep them next to your tooth brush as a reminder.
Ensuring that you do not miss your medication for whatever reason will certainly require an effort which is above average. If is also good to have information from your doctor at hand concerning what you must do should you forget to take your medications.