From: ((Steven B. Harris))
Subject: Re: Need High blood pressure advice
Date: 07 May 1995
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative

In <253820894.75940411@troubbs.org> Julie_Stephens@troubbs.org (Julie
Stephens) writes:


>A friend, male, age 40 & overweight by maybe 10 lbs has extremly high
>blood pressure...180 average! Yipes! Not to mention angina, which he
>claims is an irregularity of the heartbeat. I don't understand much about
>angina but anyone who does and could offer some input as well as natural
>alternatives and/or preventative method to the medications prescribed
>(and dislikes for various side effects, primarily lack of sexual
>response) such as diet, exercise, etc. etc. Lately he's had this
>"bloodshot" eye and I always know when the pressures up. It's got to be
>from all the stress of day to day working & living. I believe his
>circulation needs improvement as well, and that I know can be helped with
>exercise, but it's frightening to attempt it knowing you have such heavy
>duty medical problems!
>Sent via The Rest Of Us BBS - Chicago MUG - Internet gateway


    The question is what he's willing to do.  Is he willing to change
his diet?  Exercise (even if walking with you)?  Take pills (even those
with no side effect)?  Get stuck with needles?  What?  If he's not
willing to do ANYTHING, there's no point in wasting anyone's time
(including ours).  We're not magicians or astrologers (or, at least,
most of us aren't).

                                             Steve Harris, M.D.

P.S.  Angina (pectorus) refers to a chest pressure or squeezing pain in
the chest.  Pain from the heart can also show up in lots of other
places, like the jaw and left arm and hand.  Skipping of the heartbeat
(irregularity of rhythm) is something else entirely.

From: NOTQUITEhedgehog@cais.com (Robert R. Fenichel)
Newsgroups: sci.med.cardiology
Subject: Re: Angina or not?
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 01:24:03 GMT

Ben <bmajor@pipeline.com> wrote:

>> I don't know if I am having angina pain or not.  . . .
>
>Next time you have pain place a nitro tablet under your tongue, if the
>pain disappears you most likely have angina.

I wish it were that simple, but nitroglycerin will relieve esophageal
spasm, too.  Also, it's hard to rely on any unblinded test of a pain
treatment; when you do blinded studies, it's not trivial to
distinguish placebo from morphine.
            Robert R. Fenichel, M.D.

(true email address is as above, but without initial NOTQUITE)