Can My Blood Pressure Be Too Low? Is There Such Thing As Low Blood Pressure?

Dr. Clyde Yancy answers the question: 'Can My Blood Pressure Be Too Low?'

ByABC News
January 30, 2008, 5:16 PM

— -- Question: Can My Blood Pressure Be Too Low? Is There Such Thing As Low Blood Pressure?

Answer: Whenever we're talking about high blood pressure -- and especially once we've identified that someone needs to have it treated because it is sufficiently high that it warrants concern -- an intuitive question is, ''Ok can we, like, overdo this, and end up with a blood pressure getting too low?''

Doesn't happen very often. And it is usually because we do give too many medicines, but we can quickly restore that. The point being is that we should never fear that the blood pressure will get too low. Admittedly, some people do have very low blood pressures, and especially those people who are chronically ill. They may truly have very low blood pressures, but that's a very small group in the population.

For most people, especially those identified as having high blood pressure, getting too low doesn't happen. Even getting normal unfortunately doesn't happen often enough, so never hesitate to take the medicines as instructed, because it is much more likely that you will have control of the blood pressure and not a blood pressure that gets too low.

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