Thank you for joining me again this evening for our nightly podcasts. I perform these podcasts in the hopes that you will be able to education yourself on the topics discussed so you can make better informed medical decisions regarding your health in the future. I am doctor Harrison Campbell of Restoration Health a premier sugar land chiropractors office. Previously we discussed areas where Restoration Health can help you as a patient that your primary care physician or PCP cannot. Tonight, we will be looking at the importance of vital signs.
As you all know when you go to a doctor office they will usually take your vitals. Now there are different combinations of vitals which can be performed but two which are always included are pulse and blood pressure. This provides critical information about the patient to sugar land chiropractors and can help guide a diagnosis if it is the initial visit or it can clue a doctor in to how a patient is actually doing, will go look more into that in just a minute.
Now when the pulse is taken, they are measuring your heart rate. What this means is how often your heart beats in a minute. Heart rate differs based on a variety of factors, but it can help determine if the patient is in distress, if the patient is calm and relaxed, or how their heart is functioning. This last part is often overlooked by people. Yes, the rate at which is heart is beating is a key part to monitoring the pulse, but also analyzing the actual beat of the pulse provides critical information. A strong even pulse is considered normal, but what if a patient has a pounding pulse? What if the pulse is weak and irregular?
Now sugar land chiropractors will often analyze the rate of breathing as well. This is simply how many breaths you take in a minute. While not performed as often as heart rate this can provide vital, pardon the pun, information as well about the health of the patient. Does the patient have labored breathing? Are they struggling to exhale because they are asthmatic? Watching how someone breathes in addition to how many breathes they are taking is important, similar to what the pulse feels like in addition to the rate.
Blood pressure is probably the most well known vital sign. It seems every doctor people go to wants to check blood pressure. Is it because it is the most important vital sign? I would say they are all important in their own way, you just have to know what the meaning behind the number is. I would say that for most doctors the blood pressure is the most relevant vital sign. The information which is provided helps determine the safety of certain procedures, can help determine the health of the cardiovascular system, and can even help determine the amount of pain a patient is experiencing.
As sugar land chiropractors know blood pressure can be used as an indicator for pain. When we are experiencing pain, our epinephrine also known as adrenaline, levels increase to help us combat the situation. This causes a spike in blood pressure. Therefore, a patient’s blood pressure can indicate increased pain levels. During functional capacity examinations or FCEs the blood pressure is taken repeatedly throughout the testing. This is done because patients can mis rank pain levels, but you cannot fake an increase in blood pressure from pain.
Now patients are often nervous when they have their blood pressure taken. This can lead to a condition known to sugar land chiropractors as white coat hypertension should the levels spike high enough. The trick is making sure the elevated blood pressure only occurs when the patient is nervous about the doctor’s office. Should the blood pressure be elevated even when outside the doctor’s office we move away from white coat hypertension into simply hypertension.
Finally an important note about blood pressure to alleviate peoples fears of having high blood pressure. A single reading of an elevated blood pressure does not prompt a diagnosis of high blood pressure. Two elevated blood pressure readings does not mean you have high blood pressure. The criteria for being diagnosed with high blood pressure as sugar and chiropractors know is having three subsequent readings where you had elevated blood pressure. The reason for this is due to the great number of factors which influence blood pressure readings. Now just because you cannot diagnose high blood pressure from a single reading, I will discuss with you the results should they be elevated. It is better to address a concern before it becomes a problem instead of waiting for the problem to develop.
Now the reason I said blood pressure is the most relevant vital sign is due to what you can interpret from the blood pressure. High blood pressure over long periods of time damages arteries and causes a wide variety of problems. This is where sugar land chiropractors draw information on whether it can be safe to perform a chiropractic manipulation or not. No chiropractor will adjust a patient who has sky high blood pressure. That is a red flag to indicate that an adjustment is not advisable. People which have damaged arterial walls are susceptible to the artery tearing. This can lead to strokes and even death. This is why chiropractors avoid adjusting a patient who is at risk for these types of injuries.
Thank you for joining me again this evening for another great podcast. I hope you enjoyed the discussion on vital signs and hopefully alleviated some of your concerns about blood pressure when at a doctors office. As always should you or someone you know require a sugar land chiropractors services or simply have more questions on what was discussed please call Restoration Health today. We would love to schedule you an appointment and get you on the path to better health today. Thank you once again for joining us. Have a good night.