Depends on how high it is. If it’s let’s say, it’s 140-160, dietary and activity level changes may help lower it to acceptable levels (130 is in my opinion, the top your systolic should be at, 80 for diastolic). Above that and especially if it’s been long term, you really need to check with a doctor. In fact, you should check with a doctor for BP issues in general and it would have been noted/caught with regular checkups anyway (and you should go get regular check ups, at least annuals). If we are talking about something along the lines of your systolic ranging regularly from 160-180, likely you will need to be place on medication for it. It’s not embarrassing or bad to be on BP meds btw. Things like a amlodipine is a very safe drug to use, not real side effects. You likely won’t be placed on nitrates but if you do get prescribed that, just watch out for supplements that contains nitrates, that would be dangerous. Likely you won’t be placed on nitrates. They usually try amlodipine first and usually that takes care of the issue. Of course you should also take a look at your diet and activity level even if you get placed on medication. Taking cardiovascular heath supplements would also be fine for the most part even if taking a BP med.
The thing to note is that prolonged elevated BP above normal range is going to result usually in things like left ventricular hypertrophy, that’s bad news bears.
Sodium sensitivity is a thing as well. Best way to gauge this is going to be regularly BP monitoring and careful tracking of your sodium and potassium intake, this would show you what effects they have on your BP and you would know pretty quickly if you have a sodium sensitivity or not.
www.strongsupplementshop.com
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
