Ten year old with high blood pressure

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amother

Tue, Jun 28 2022, 8:02 pm

We just found out my almost ten year old son has high blood pressure. He is on a 24 hr monitor to check if it's related to being at Dr or usual.
Apparently he is considered obese, although he really only looks a little chubby..we also have high blood pressure in the family genes (but not so young!!).
Any experience ? What can we do? Trying to cut down carbs, increase exercise....? Any other ideas?

zaq

Tue, Jun 28 2022, 9:09 pm

Didn't your pediatrician give you any advice?
Start cutting back on sodium, which appears in many forms besides table salt. Learn how to cook without adding salt. Cutting back on processed foods and condiments is essential, as these contain massive quantities of sodium even if they don't taste salty. Some of it is from compounds used to preserve the food, like the sodium nitrite in deli meats. READ NUTRITION LABELS. Ketchup, prepared mustard, salad dressings, cheese, canned foods of all kinds, all have shocking levels of sodium. look for no-salt-added tomato sauce, rinse canned fish before serving, swear off soy sauce, get peanut butter with no salt added or make your own. Also look up the DASH diet--Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. Not only will this be good for your ds but it will be good for you and dh as well as the rest of the family. Making food from scratch allows you to control the level of sodium. Unfortunately, kosher meat and poultry have a lot of sodium from the kashering process, so if you eat fleishik more than a few meals a week, consider cutting back.

Try to get your ds to do half an hour of exercise a day, even if all it is is a leisurely walk.

sunspot

Tue, Jun 28 2022, 9:14 pm

Did you give him the covid vaccine

amother

Wed, Jun 29 2022, 8:04 pm

Thanks for the info about the DASH diet! I will have to look it up. I really didn't realize how crazy it is that sodium is in everything! what kid doesn't live on ketchup? my salad seasoning... cheese? seriously? oyyyyy what can he eat? lol

and no- he didn't get the covid vaccine B"H. he is overweight/obese (he doesn't look obese!) plus genetic redisposition. but still so young!!

anonymrs

Wed, Jun 29 2022, 8:11 pm

Have you had his thyroid checked? Sometimes high blood pressure can be something that comes from a dysregulated thyroid.

amother

Mimosa

Wed, Jun 29 2022, 8:11 pm

Look into magnesium deficiency. Low sodium is a bandaid.

amother

Banana

Wed, Jun 29 2022, 8:16 pm

Please speak to your pediatrician they should be able to help you because 10 is very young

WitchKitty

Thu, Jun 30 2022, 12:18 am

When my mom was diagnosed with high blood pressure, she first went to a nutritionist.
She got a lot of great advice. I don't know all, but I know she started making her own sprouts. Within a couple months bp changed to normal numbers. You can try..

amother

Junglegreen

Tue, Jul 05 2022, 11:32 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Is this based on a one time blood pressure reading? My son measured high at his 11 year checkup because he was really anxious about being at the doctor’s office plus wearing a mask.
Our pediatrician told us to take it at home too, which we did and Bh it was normal.
If he truly does have high blood pressure, ask the pediatrician/cardiologist what you should be doing in terms of exercise and diet. I wouldn’t jump to any extreme diet yet until you have confirmed the diagnosis.
Hatzlacha

amother

Tue, Jul 05 2022, 1:41 pm

hi,
so it wasn't a one time reading.... it was high one day at nurse in school plus blurry vision, so we went to the dr, who sent us to ER... and it stayed high... but vision cleared BH.
We followed up with cardiologist and nephrologist and all those tests came out good BH.
THey took his blood pressure at the cardiologist and it was high.
He was set up with a 24 hour blood pressure monitor to see if it was dr office related and BH the results came out normal!!! Yay!!
Now the question is... should we worry that their machine was off??

Librarian

Tue, Jul 05 2022, 2:14 pm

My healthy and fit teenage son had high blood pressure into his twenties. His heart and kidney tests came out normal bH. He watched what he ate religiously. No improvement. He did a lot of research on his own and discovered that sleeping on one's back can sometimes cause high blood pressure. He made sure to only sleep on his side and after a few weeks his blood pressure came down and has been normal ever since.