William Hedrick, M.D

    Blog: There are many things about your health that you can't feel, but there are two very important things you can monitor without coming to the doctor. One is your blood pressure and the other is your blood sugar. You can't feel your blood pressure when it is elevated. But the heart is a pump and when your pressure is high the heart is having to work harder than it needs to and will wear out faster. So buy a cuff or go by the drug store and monitor it. When the heart contracts the pressure goes up and then it starts falling until it beats again. The two figures that we check are the highest that it gets and the lowest it gets before the next contraction, The highest is called the systolic and we like to see that in the 130's or less. The lowest it gets is called the diastolic and we like to see that is the 80's or lower. If your pressure is consistently above these figures then medicine for your blood pressure is probably going to be necessary.

You also can't feel your blood sugar when it is too high and  the only way to check it is to stick your finger. If there is a family history of diabetes, or you are overweight, it is important to know what your blood sugar is. You can buy a glucometer without a prescription and check your blood sugar at home. In the morning it should run somewhere between 90 and 120. If it is consistently above that you need to come in and get a hemoglobin a1c which tells us what your average blood sugar has been over the last few weeks, The two most important things you can do to keep your blood sugar down are diet and exercise. If they don't control your blood sugar you may need medication. High blood sugar can be damaging to the eyes and blood vessels. 

Our emotions are something that we can feel but are often very confusing. The way I look at is when the emotions match the circumstances then the emotions are normal, and if they don't match it is either because someone is not looking at the circumstances correctly, or something is wrong with one or more of their emotional centers. It is often not appreciated that our emotional centers can malfunction. A prime example is bipolar disorder, and panic disorder.  If an abnormal emotion is because someone is looking at circumstances  incorrectly, then psychotherapy can help. But if it is because one or more of the emotional centers is not working correctly then medication will probably be necessary to bring the emotion or emotions back to normal. One should never be afraid to get help with their emotions.