Heart break leads to cardiac arrest.

That day everything looked cool and reassuring in the morning OPD (outpatients’ department). Suddenly there was a big commotion outside and the receptionist rushed in. There was a case of emergency. Fortunately or unfortunately, my OPD chamber is on the first floor. As I reached the ground floor, I saw a not-so-young lady perspiring from head to toe. She looked pale and withdrawn and the weighing machine lay beside her. I thought she might have seen her weight and got panicky. She said in a croaking voice, “Doctor, my blood pressure is either high or low because of which I am feeling very dizzy.” Reassured her, little realizing what a job it would be to check her blood pressure. The girth of her upper arm was so great that the cuff of my blood pressure apparatus could hardly go round half of it. We put two cuffs and somehow managed to do the unthinkable. Her blood pressure was find but at the end of it, I felt a little dizzy. She got up and suddenly started looking fine. The mere diagnosis that her blood pressure was normal changed her entire bearing. This is not an isolated case. Lots of people come with the apprehension that something is wrong with their blood pressure. The moment they hear that their blood pressure is okay, you can sense relief replacing the worry. Then follows the inevitable question, “Doctor, how can we know whether our blood pressure is high or low ?”

All doctors love to lecture and I am no exception. Like a true bred doctor, I began to give a sermon. I started, “The heart is a fist-sized muscular structure situated in the chest. It lies more to the left than to the right. No wonder all trade unions are leftist in approach. This is connected to miles and miles, sorry, kilometers and kilometers of blood vessels which carry blood. The heart beats 70-80 times each minute. with each muscular contraction, the heart pushes blood out to the various parts of the body at each relaxation, it gets filled with blood. The intricate dynamics of the heart, the force of contractions, the resistance of the blood vessels and a hundred other odd factors determine the pressure of the flow of blood or the blood pressure. 

“When the heart muscle contracts, the blood pressure is at the highest. This is called systolic blood pressure. When the heart relaxes, the blood pressure is at the lowest and is called the diastolic blood pressure. The blood pressure is normally between 110 and 130 ( systolic) and 70 and 85 (diastolic). These readings however vary according to age and sex. 

“Do you know that heart muscles keep working all their life without even taking a second’s break and when they do take a break, do you know what happens?

“Yes, they lead to CARDIAC ARREST !”