My Husband and hypertension

**Cyndie32** · 10-27-2011 02:45 PM

i have been on a mission to get healthy. i bought a blood pressure cuff. my blood pressure is fairly normal but i had my husband take his and it scared me. he took it 4 times and the average was 168/92. omg. thats hypertension. he said there must be something wrong with the cuff and went to cvs and took it on one of those machines. it read 165/89. i told him that i didn't want to lose him. he is the love of my life. i want to help him but i don't want him to think i am trying to run his life. we already eat a healthy diet but he does smoke, is about 30 lbs overweight, and does not exercise and drinks a ton of coffee. his high blood pressure has everything to do with his lifestyle. he said he is not going to be a pill popper and to that i said that i did not want him to be. he also said that he has seen so many that as soon as they get healthy they kick the bucket. i told him that i have seen that happen also but that is a rare occurance. he knows what he has to do. he has to exercise, lose weight, quit smoking and cut down on coffee. he says he is going to work on it but it has been three weeks and i have seen no changes. so my question is, without being a nag or mothering him, how do i help him? i did some research and printed 5 or 6 articles on how to lower your blood pressure without medication. but other than that what can i do?

**CHANDLERS WISH** · 10-27-2011 03:33 PM

Cyndie it's so hard..You are on your mission for you.. He is seeing the results as well, probably wishes he had the same will power, but doesn't.

You have to I guess ascertain, where he is happy and where he is not and try to get him to jump over the things that are not making him happy. Every person in my opinion that feels that having excess weight to a larger degree than say 1 kilo or so over weight, usually are not happy with things in life, work, something and turn to food for comfort, cigarettes too, naturally there is addiction attached to that.

Give him a better purpose for laughing and living... Find out what it is that he loves if he is actually doing things he loves, or they are on the back burner and start getting him (without him realising) to commence doing those things, therefore, feeling real good about life and happy in himself, the rest will then start to fall into place.

**Crystalblue** · 10-27-2011 06:56 PM

That sounds so frustrating. Sometimes I wish it was easier to make people act right! I would say, nag away. Ask him if he would do better if you slowly reduced his rations of bad habits like coffee intake and other unhealthy habits. Or maybe get that stuff out of the house. That e-cigarette worked really well for me, but I wanted to quit. The scariest part about quitting is that you think it'll be so much harder and more painful than it actually is.

Ugh, that's a tough one. How do you reason with someone who already knows you're right? He knows what he needs to do. The trick is just doing it. Keep printing out those articles for him. Maybe something will sink in. You could try limiting the nagging time to 2 or three days out of the week so he has some days off from it.

I hope he gets over the fear of changing to a healthier lifestyle, one bad habit at a time.

**cocooned57** · 10-27-2011 08:26 PM

My H was in his 60s and had HBP that he ignored. Luckily, his first crisis was not a stroke or heart attack, but a severe nosebleed. He was so fortunate bc most ppl who had ignored HBP would have not just had a nosebleed. But it scared him straight and he takes BP meds religiously now, has for 10 years. However, his BP problem was due to his age really. No lifestyle changes seemed to help bc he tried, but in the end, he had to take meds. Your H may be young enough to alter his lifestyle and change his BP, his arteries may not yet be damaged. He can still reverse this, if he makes the effort. Cc57

**Cyndie32** · 10-28-2011 07:09 AM

when hubby got home from work last nite, he told me he had quit smoking (he smokes cigars not cigarettes but he smokes like a chimney, there is always a cigar hanging out of his mouth even if it is not lit) and only had 2 cups of coffee yesterday. i told him that i would do what ever it took to help him, that all he had to do was let me know what he wanted my role to be in this. he said that right now he wasn't sure and that he was making a plan. hopefully he does. he is a very good man. he is a perfectionist tho. sooo. he comes down on himself pretty hard when he is not perfect. this is going to be a big challenge for both of us. wish us luck. i will keep you posted. any advice on motivation is appreciated.

**Crystalblue** · 10-28-2011 08:50 AM

Good luck! That sounds really promising. He's trying and that's the most important part. Losing the cigars would probably make the biggest difference in the long run. Plus, once he can breath, maybe he'll join you on those walks.

**CHANDLERS WISH** · 10-28-2011 03:26 PM

We smokers "hate" it when someone says you don't need that one... We rebel.

Try catching out the times he isn't doing it and go, wow, I'm so proud of you today and leave it at that, don't talk about it, it will make him think about it and want one...

Does he like lemon? Try a cup of warm to hot water, with a squeezed lemon in it, and just say, "hey try this, wow, it's refreshing, someone put me onto it" again your not saying try this instead of coffee, but you are giving him a replacement option if he likes it, so he can still "feel"like he's drinking coffee.

Best wishes sweet.