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Prepare to have your health questions answered here on Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions

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with Dr. Todd Binkley, owner of Binkley Healing Center in downtown Ventura.

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Now, here's Dr. Todd.

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Good afternoon.

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I'm Dr. Todd Binkley, board certified doctor of non-force chiropractic and practitioner

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of functional medicine, which means using standard diagnostic tests to identify places

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where there is stress on your liver, your kidneys, your heart, your immune system, places

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where things are not working like they should, things that you can identify early enough

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to correct with better food, exercise, and supplements, and avoid becoming dependent

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on drugs for the rest of your life.

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The last episode, we talked about high blood pressure, safe, effective, natural solutions

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to high blood pressure.

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And if you don't know it already, all of the past episodes of this show are available on

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my website, binkleyhealingcenter.com, as well as Apple podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube, so

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you can listen to them anytime you like on demand.

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So more on high blood pressure this week.

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I ended up, ended off last week's show talking about how I oftentimes get people coming in

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to me wanting to get off all medications.

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And there are some medications that are easier than others to get off of, but I always request

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that they, I'm not going to, I always tell them I'm going to make that decision for them.

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You need to go back to the prescribing physician and have a conversation with them and make

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that choice yourself.

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But there's, you know, cholesterol drugs, for example, and osteoporosis drugs are really

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good drugs to not take unless you absolutely need them.

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And there's lots of easy ways, better alternatives, natural alternatives that work better than

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the drugs.

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Blood pressure, blood pressure drugs are the great exception.

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It's really important to take blood pressure medication if your blood pressure is elevated.

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And it's obviously even more important to check your blood pressure.

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People don't check their blood pressure.

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You don't know if you have high blood pressure unless you check it.

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It has no symptoms.

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You can wait until you drop dead of a heart attack, but you know, that's not a very good

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idea obviously.

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People do that all the time though.

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So it's really important to check your blood pressure.

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If you're over 50 and you haven't checked your blood pressure in a year, get a blood

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pressure monitor.

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You can get a good blood pressure monitor for 35 bucks.

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I'm going to come back to that in a second.

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Everyone should be checking their blood pressure.

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Even younger people.

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If you have, if you have anxiety, if you tend to get angry, if you're sleepless, if you

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have tight muscles throughout your body, if you find yourself arguing with other people

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a lot, if you find that you can't cope with certain situations in your life, then you

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have stress.

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I mentioned that because a lot of times I have this conversation with patients and I'll

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say, do you have stress?

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No, I don't have any stress in my life.

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I'm fine.

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But they have all the other things that I just described.

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Well, if you have anger management issues or difficulty sleeping or anxiety or you know,

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you have stress, all those things are examples of, you know, stress and stress isn't, some

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kinds of stress are not necessarily going to badly affect your health.

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One person's stress is another person's stimulation.

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You know, some people need more stimulation.

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Some people sit around and worry too much.

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And it would be some, something that might cause one person's high blood pressure to

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go up, could cause someone else's to go down just to give them something interesting to

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do to occupy their time with, or, you know, to go out and exercise and get something out

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of their system.

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So yes, it is still true.

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If you or someone you love is looking for an alternative to becoming dependent on drugs,

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then, you know, I'm your guy.

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Come see me.

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I will usually, I can usually find ways to first identify whether or not you have something

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that needs treatment.

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And most of the time coming up, come up with a treatment that doesn't involve drugs.

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But the great exception is blood pressure.

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There are others.

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For example, if someone comes in and has a viral or a bacterial or a fungal infection

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that requires antibiotics or other medication to eradicate, then I will recommend that they

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see a prescribing physician to get that medication.

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And it doesn't come up that often, but you know, more than once a year, sometimes two

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or three times a year, I'll find people have cancer.

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They didn't know it.

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That's never exciting.

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But bone marrow cancer, especially leukemia and lymphoma are almost always diagnosed in

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an asymptomatic patient on routine blood work.

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Meaning patient comes in for some other condition, they have no, you know, leukemia and lymphoma

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basically have no symptoms until it gets bad enough that your immune system starts working.

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Maybe you have symptoms of a cold or a flu.

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But you know, it's very commonly identified on routine blood work.

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Occasionally, I'll see someone that warrants a referral to a gastroenterologist for a severe

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gut condition or a cardiologist for a severe heart condition.

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But most of the time, these conditions cause symptoms that people are already being treated

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for.

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So it's rare that I have to refer out to another medical professional for mainstream medicine.

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But if it's necessary, it will show us the point.

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If you do the complete blood panel with me, we're going to see that stuff too.

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It's really easy to diagnose severe medical conditions.

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This is a huge point.

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It's really easy to diagnose full blown diabetes, full blown heart disease, you know, full blown

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kidney disease, liver disease, you know, a huge screaming autoimmune condition.

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Medical conditions are easy to diagnose.

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They're glaringly obvious on just a few tests.

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This is why one of the major distinctions between functional medicine and mainstream

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medicine is that functional medicine requires doing more tests because it's harder to diagnose.

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It requires more tests to diagnose and a separate form of education that most doctors don't

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get.

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They certainly don't get it at medical school and most doctors are just, you know, they're

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not interested in it.

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They're busy treating people.

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It's not their fault.

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You know, you can't expect.

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Why don't all doctors do this?

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Well, because they're busy treating the mess that most people show up with in their offices.

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Most patients aren't interested in taking better care of themselves.

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Most patients, if you judge by their actions, not their words, but their actions, are not

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interested in a safe, effective, natural solution to anything.

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They want to just wait and cross their fingers and wait for somebody in a white coat with

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a medical miracle to save their life.

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So yeah, no doubt it's never going to be the case that mainstream medicine is going to

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do the type of things that you hear about on this show because they're busy doing mainstream

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medical care for people who often need mainstream medical care.

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But for many, many, so many conditions, there are other options.

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The major exception that we're focusing on today is high blood pressure.

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So if you have high blood pressure and nothing else you're doing is keeping it under control,

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then you should take blood pressure medication.

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I do recommend sometimes people go get a physician to give them medication for high blood pressure

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if they're not controlling it otherwise.

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Why?

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Because people aren't checking their blood pressure.

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So here's one of the most important things we're going to talk about today.

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Check your own blood pressure at home.

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Get a blood pressure cuff.

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Well, what kind of blood pressure cuff should I get?

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What's the best brand?

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Should I get one that checks the blood pressure on my finger, on my wrist, on my upper arm?

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Well, it's always best to get one that checks the pressure on your upper arm because they're

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just the most reliable.

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And one of the reasons they're the most reliable is because they're more difficult for you

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to screw up the reading when you're taking your blood pressure at home.

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So I just researched this.

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There was a few years ago when the wrist monitors, don't get a finger monitor, those are still

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no good.

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The wrist monitors are actually accurate now.

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If you use them correctly, the reason they're not as accurate as upper arm ones is because

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most people don't use them correctly.

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So I'll come back to that in a second.

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Omron, O-M-R-O-N is one of the most common reliable brands that's been around for decades.

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I've had an Omron battery powered machine that I use in my office for intake exams.

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Just quick and easy way to check people's blood pressure.

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I can have my assistant do it.

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They're reliable, well known, well studied, been around for years.

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For about 35 bucks, you can get a basic Omron machine that works great.

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But Omron is not the only good one.

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You can Google a list of AMA approved blood pressure cuffs.

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New machines are coming out all the time with convenient features like apps on your phone

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to track your readings.

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So it's not the only one.

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If you have one now or if you want to buy one and you want to make sure that it's accurate,

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you can bring it into my office and I'll check your pressure with a proper cuff and a stethoscope

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to make sure your machine is accurate, just like I do with my Omron machine in the office.

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So Omron is one of the most popular brands to demonstrate reliability.

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35 bucks on Amazon.

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But the basic $35, they have other ones, but the basic Omron device, the most common one,

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it only records 14 readings.

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You can always just write them down.

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But it's nice to have a device record them for you if you're tech savvy enough to use

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it.

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But the basic Omron $35 Omron device only records 14 readings and does not offer a phone

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app, which many people may prefer.

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So the most popular brand currently on Amazon is called iHealth, little iHealth brand monitor.

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Over 33,000 reviews.

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It's $36.

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It'll store up to 99 readings and it comes with a free app for any smartphone which connects

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by Bluetooth, wirelessly connects to your phone.

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You have to set it up once, download an app on your phone, but then it'll store all of

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your readings, unlimited readings.

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And so you can then easily email those records to your doctor, save them for yourself.

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It's got a way to record notes and set reminders for yourself to check your blood pressure.

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And it even will detect irregular heartbeats.

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So I haven't used one of these yet, but if it can detect irregular heartbeats accurately,

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that's a huge added benefit for 36 bucks.

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So bottom line, if you have any kind of stress in your life, or even if you think you don't,

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if you have difficulty sleeping, if you have anger management, if you get irritability,

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anxiety, ask your spouse or your friends if they think you're stressed, if you think you're

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not.

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And if they say yes, get a blood pressure cuff and start checking your blood pressure.

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I'm Dr. Todd Binkley.

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You're listening to safe, effective, natural solutions to almost any health challenge.

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Today we're talking about high blood pressure, how to know if you have it by getting a blood

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pressure cuff and checking, the importance of checking yourself.

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So important.

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But also we're going to talk about how to control it and how to reduce it and keep it

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low without drugs.

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Hopefully, sometimes you can't.

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And it's one of the most important things if you're, you know, you're really gung ho

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about not taking any medications, but your blood pressure is high, that's the one medication

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you should take.

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You only get one heart.

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Well, you can get a heart replacement, but not recommended.

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And it's just super and super important to know.

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First of all, just to know if you have high blood pressure and then control it if you

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do.

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And there's lots of ways to do that without drugs, which we'll talk about.

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Before we get back to that, I mentioned that, you know, now it has been shown that the upper

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arm, the standard ones that you see most places where you put it around your upper arm right

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above the elbow, those are the best, most accurate blood pressure monitors.

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But mostly because the wrist ones are more convenient for some people, some people who

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have really large upper arms or really small upper arms, the regular blood pressure cuffs

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might not fit, or it might just be difficult to fit, especially if someone's obese, or

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it might be painful.

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If someone's really sensitive for any reason in their arm, it might be just uncomfortable

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enough.

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If it's uncomfortable enough or just difficult enough to use that you're not going to do

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it, then get a wrist cuff.

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But here are the main reason the wrist cuffs end up being less reliable is not because

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of the device itself, but because you need to use it properly.

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And so I think that's important enough to mention here right now.

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And some of these recommendations apply to using any blood pressure cuff.

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So the first few, for example, avoid coffee, tobacco, and exercise for 30 minutes before

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taking your blood pressure so that you're getting a normal read, not an overstimulated

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read.

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Use the bathroom, sit still for five minutes before you get started.

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Use which arm you're going to use, sit in a chair with your feet flat on the floor.

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Even that, people don't realize how important that is.

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You don't want to be lying in bed or sitting with your feet crossed.

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When your feet are flat on the floor, you will end up being more relaxed.

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So you'll get a better reading of your average blood pressure.

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Position your chair on a flat surface with a table right in front of you and put the

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cuff on your wrist, secure it in place, and then put your elbow on the table.

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We're talking about how to use a wrist cuff now.

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So these previous instructions are important for using any type of regular blood pressure

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cuff.

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But when you're using the wrist one, you want to have a table in front of you, using a wrist

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monitor, put it around your wrist, have the elbow on the table in front of you, gently

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place your hand on your chest with your wrist at the level of your heart.

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So you put the monitor on your wrist, put your elbow on the table, and then rest your

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wrist with the monitor on it against your heart.

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So now the monitor is at the same level as your heart.

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So it's not going to be higher or lower than your heart.

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This is one of the most common errors.

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If your arm is just hanging down at the side or if it's above your heart or below your

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heart in any position, that's going to dramatically alter, negatively impact the accuracy of that

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blood pressure reading.

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So you sit with your elbow resting on a table and your wrist with the monitor resting against

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your heart, and then measure your blood pressure.

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Stay in this, relax and stay in this position for a few seconds, you know, 30 to 60 seconds,

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a minute or so before starting.

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Take a couple of deep breaths.

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Make sure you're relaxed before you start, before you push the button, and then measure

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the blood pressure without moving or talking.

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So sit there by yourself.

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Don't talk, don't move, push the button, and then take your blood pressure in with, if

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you do all of that, then you can get an accurate reading with a wrist cuff as accurate as a

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normal upper arm cuff.

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So you can get an excellent blood pressure cuff on Amazon in stores for about $35, maybe

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even less.

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I don't know, maybe I'm not 100% on this, but I would imagine if, especially if you're,

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I have Medicare or many insurance companies, I would, I don't know this for sure.

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Don't quote me on this, but I would imagine you could probably get it for free if you

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get your insurance physician to request it for you.

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But anyway, get a blood pressure cuff, measure your blood pressure, and check, you know,

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log the readings, keep a record, get an average over a week and save those records, send them

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to your doctor, bring them in to see me.

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If you get a meter and you're not sure if it's accurate or you want to confirm that

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it is accurate, bring it in and I'll check it with a regular cuff and a stethoscope to

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make sure that it is accurate.

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But the most important thing, as far as I'm concerned, and to most people who come to

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see me, is to learn how to control your blood pressure yourself.

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This is why it's so important to get the monitor so that you know whether or not it's elevated.

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But I've done this with hundreds of patients.

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You get your monitor, you check your blood pressure, especially when it's high, like

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you, you know, you're agitated maybe, or you know it's high, or maybe you're just, you

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know, you've established the habit of checking it.

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You get a high reading and you're worried about it.

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Immediately lie down on the floor, not a bed, not a couch.

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You need to be on a firm surface.

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If you've got a massage table or any other kind of table with a little mat you want to

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lie down, that's fine, but anyone can lie on the floor.

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You need to be on a firm surface so that the muscles around your rib cage that are used

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in breathing will relax.

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This is the easiest way.

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Lie on the floor and do deep breathing exercises for 15 minutes.

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So this is as simple as lying on your floor, lying on the floor, on your back, with your

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knees bent or straight, if you have any pain in your low back, lying on the floor, then

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if you bend your knees, you know, that can take that issue.

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Get a little pillow to support your head.

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If you're, if you're, if you're lying on the floor and your chin is higher than your

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forehead, then you need a pillow.

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You want your forehead to be at least as high as your chin.

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You don't want to be lying there with your head tilting back because of your, because

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your upper back is hunched forward.

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You know, get into a comfortable position and just position and just do deep breathing

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exercises.

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This is as simple as slowly breathing in to the count of four or six or eight.

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Just slowly inhale.

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One, two, three, four, maybe, maybe you've already breathed in as far as you can at a

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count of four.

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Maybe you count to eight, whatever it is, just count slowly as you're breathing in,

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pause for a count of one or two and then slowly exhale.

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And this is the important part.

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When you exhale, and this is why it's important to count, it doesn't matter what number you

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count to, but when you exhale, make it take longer than the inhalation.

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So if you inhale as slowly as you can and you end up on a count of five, then when you

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exhale, make it take seven or eight.

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Let's make the number simple.

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Say you, and that you inhale and you only get up to four, then try and make the exhalation

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to a count of at least six.

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If you inhale slowly counting and you get up to six and you're breathing in as much

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as you can, pause for a breath or two, a count or two, and then slowly exhale and restrict

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that breathing.

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You know, slowly let the air out, restrict the outflow of the air so that if you breathe

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into a count of six, make the exhalation take to a count of eight.

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And you know, just apply that to whatever number you naturally easily breathe into.

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The actual number doesn't matter that much.

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Just make the exhalation take a little bit longer than the inhalation.

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Do that for 15 minutes and then recheck your blood pressure and you will be amazed.

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It can go down 10, 15, 20, 30 points in 15 minutes.

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I've had people do this hundreds of times.

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And the importance of that is number one, if you're at risk of heart disease, if you're

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in a really stressful situation, you know, it could dramatically diffuse that situation.

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But the reason I really like to have people do that is so that you know, you have that

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instant feedback, you know, you can control your blood pressure.

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How cool is that?

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You can do something immediately to reduce your blood pressure so that if you, you know,

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you have a high reading for whatever reason, you don't raise your blood pressure even more

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by freaking out because your blood pressure is high.

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You know, you can just lie down on the floor, do some deep breathing exercises and reduce

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your blood pressure immediately.

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There's lots of other things you can do to immediately lower your pressure.

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You can go for a walk.

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You can do anything that relaxes you.

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But the important, the main thing is I really want to encourage you to, you know, get the

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monitor, check it, go for a walk and check it if it's high, go for a walk, check it again

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after not immediately after, you know, go for a walk, come back, you know, rest for

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five minutes to completely calm down, not sweating anymore, breathing normally again,

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and then check it.

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Do literally anything you can think of that you find relaxing and then check it again

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after it's high and see that it's gone down.

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So doing this will give you the confidence to know that you may not need drugs for the

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rest of your life.

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You just need to check your pressure regularly and figure out a way to do basically two things,

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reduce your heart rate and the tension in the muscular walls of your blood pressure.

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Your blood pressure goes up when your heart beats faster and it goes up because the heart's

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pumping out the blood faster and that increases pressure in the pipes.

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It also increases when the pipes get stiff or when the muscular walls of the pipes spasm,

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which is often the result of stress and creates back pressure.

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So the pressure is increased by the heart beating faster.

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It's also increased by the pipes getting clogged or stiffer or tighter because of muscular

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contractions in the walls of the pipes, which is usually the result of some kind of stress.

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But exercising regularly will tend to reduce your blood pressure over time.

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Just noticing that it's high is more likely if you do something about it, is a good way

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to make will result in you more likely doing something about it if you're so inclined to

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do things about it.

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Getting adequate sleep is really important.

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Seven to eight hours per night and waking in the morning feeling rested.

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So if you're in bed for seven or eight hours, but you wake up and you don't feel rested,

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then you're not getting adequate sleep.

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If you sleep six hours a night and you wake up and feel ready to go, that's a rarity,

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but good for you.

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You're better off than a lot of people who lie in bed but do not wake feeling rested.

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Avoiding salt intake, we hear about that all the time.

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It can be important for many people, especially if you eat a lot of processed food or eat

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out in restaurants frequently or use a salt shaker at your table.

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I don't have a salt shaker on my table.

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I cook delicious food all the time and very rarely use salt.

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There's lots of other ways to make your food taste better.

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But conversely, there's a lot of really good foods that are salty too.

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But more important than the salt conversation, we can talk about that a little bit more,

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but more important is to understand that sodium is an essential nutrient.

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So more important than controlling sodium is controlling your sodium potassium balance.

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Sodium and potassium must be in balance.

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They're both essential nutrients without which you cannot survive.

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And they balance each other out.

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And maintaining that balance is essential for the workings of every cell in your body

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and also maintaining blood pressure.

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But for most people, supplementing potassium is often a bad idea.

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Can't even be harmful.

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And here's the good news.

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The best place to get more potassium is eating fruits and vegetables, especially vegetables.

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There's potassium in all vegetables and fruits.

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So if you eat adequate vegetables, like if you eat a big salad every day or a big portion

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of broccoli or cauliflower or bell peppers or tomatoes or carrots or whatever vegetable

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you like that isn't mostly starch, then you will often get plenty of potassium to offset

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the salt that you're eating if you don't eat a lot of junk food or a lot of processed

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food or eat out in restaurants where they over-salt their food.

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And if you don't, most people have heard that bananas and avocados in particular are super

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high in potassium.

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So it's always a good idea to avoid using a salt shaker at your table.

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I prefer to make my food taste good, for example, with herbs and spices like garlic and onions,

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Herbes de Provence, which is a combination of rosemary and basil and a few other herbs,

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chili flakes and chili peppers if you can tolerate the heat, black pepper.

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If you can't tolerate the heat of chili peppers or chili flakes, you can cook the heat off

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the capsaicin, the hot component of peppers, just by cooking them, putting them in a little

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oil or whatever you're cooking on a stove with the fan on, cook for saute something

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for a little bit and most of the heat goes away and you still get the delicious flavor

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of various peppers, which is so important for so many.

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If you like Mexican food or Indian food or any other food that uses spices like that,

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that is one of the main ways they make those foods taste so yummy.

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And you know, there's also, it's nice to be able to get a potassium in your diet so

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that you can eat some healthy foods that tend to be salty, like fermented foods like sauerkraut

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and kimchi and pickles and cheese.

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A little bit of cheese can make things taste so great.

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Thank you for tuning in.

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Send me your questions about how to control high blood pressure without medications and

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tune in here next week.

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Have a fantastic weekend.

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You've been listening to Safe, Effective Natural Solutions with Dr. Todd Binkley.

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If you have a health question you want discussed on the show, email your health questions to

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drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter.com.

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Take advantage of this opportunity to ask questions for yourself and for your loved

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ones because our health matters.

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Join him next Friday at 4 p.m. for Safe, Effective Natural Solutions right here on

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00:24:56,540 --> 00:24:59,260
98.3 The Word, KDAR.