If you’re feeling as healthy as a horse, with no obvious signs of out-of-the-ordinary health issues, there’s no need to go the doctor, right? While that may seem like a perfectly logical rule to live by, when it comes to high blood pressure, skipping your routine checkup isn’t a wise choice — even if you feel no symptoms whatsoever.
“We call [high blood pressure] the silent killer,” says Michelle Weisfelner Bloom, MD, a cardiologist at Stony Brook University Medical Center. That’s because high blood pressure often doesn’t show any symptoms.
Dr. Bloom is a Cardiologist, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Stony Brook University Medical Center, a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the Heart Failure Society of America.
Rachel Bond, MD, FACC, is a Cardiologist at Dignity Health and served as Associate Director of the Women's Heart Health Program at Northwell Health, Lenox Hill Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Cardiology at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine.
References
American Heart Association. (2022). Health threats from high blood pressure.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). Measuring your blood pressure.
MedlinePlus. (2023). Malignant hypertension.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2023). Get your blood pressure checked.
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