It is very easy to come out of you Doctors Surgery (or Healthcare Practitioners Surgery) after you have been diagnosed with High Blood Pressure and admit defeat totally.

It is the easiest option to take, to just sit back and say to yourself "OK, I'll have to come to terms with the pills then" but why should you when with a little bit of effort you can control this condition that you have?

It is probably the hardest of the options placed in front of you but isn't the end result worth it?

It all really boils down to how badly you want it?

If your High Blood Pressure is largely brought about by being slightly over weight then isn't the bonus of not only looking and feeling better when you lose the pounds but you actually feel a lot better from the inside out as well?

Believe me it does feel good and you do feel great afterwards.

The one important thing that you have to try understand right from the start is what are the main contributory factors that brought about the High Blood Pressure in the first place? This may not always be totally possible to find out and it might indeed be almost impossible to get by without some form of medication for the rest of your life but it is a target that is well worth aiming for.

In my case when I was diagnosed with High Blood Pressure my initial Blood Pressure reading was 216 over 160! A little on the high side I must admit and looking back on it, being told of how high my high blood pressure was at the time made me feel slightly intimidated if not a little worried.

I try not to sound too glib about this whole episode because the reading was extremely high and was (as I found out afterwards) extremely dangerous but I guess it was my ignorance of the whole condition that initially got me through that particular few days.

Concentrated and enforced bed rest, plus medication brought the blood pressure levels down to manageable proportions and then I was able to start to plan my way forward from there. Initially the medication was a mixture of amlodipine, bendroflumethiazide to act as a slight diuretic to make sure that water retention was not a major issue and additional cause of blood pressure.

Finally after a few months they prescribed a small amount of one of the new wonder drugs the Medical Fraternity is going on about one of the statins. In my case Pravastatin.

I was diagnosed with HBP in June 2001 and since then my BP levels have never been over 130/140 over 80/87. I am 48 and so quite frankly these levels would be right on the button if I can keep maintaining them.

However over the past two years the levels have been constant and my last reading was 120 over 80 and I am at present, in consultation with my Doctor, experimenting with reducing the medication.

As of the time of this first part of the article, We have managed to reduce the amlodipine and I am just taking the "Bendro" plus the statin. I have to say that increased exercise and a slight change of diet have helped. In part two of this article I will go into more detail of how I have managed to bring this all about and also the plans for the future.

So to recap. You can reduce your Blood Pressure naturally but in most cases with medication and you can do something positive about keeping it down as well.