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Inside Health

BP reax, fibroids, access to notes, botox

Inside Health

BBC

Health & Fitness, Science

4.4575 Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2012

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As many as 2 million people in the UK may have been misdiagnosed with high blood pressure - getting treatment they don't need. But how many of them have so-called "white coat hypertension" - where their blood pressure shoots up at the very sight of their doctor or nurse? For patients with high readings in the surgery doctors can offer "ambulatory" machines for them to take home, which monitor blood pressure round-the-clock. Bryan Williams who's professor of medicine at University College, London, led the team which drew up the latest blood pressure guidelines for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or NICE. He says that anyone considering monitoring their own blood pressure at home should take measurements both in the morning and evening whilst sitting down - and work out the average over four days. The British Hypertension Society has a list of approved home blood pressure monitors on their website.

NICE has also just approved the use of Botox injections to help people with chronic migraine that hasn't responded to other treatments. But it's been a controversial decision - Botox is expensive, and no miracle cure. It was initially rejected and is still not endorsed by NICE's equivalent in Scotland. Consultant neurologist Dr Fayyaz Ahmad has had some success with patients at his private clinic outside Hull. One of them is Dawn Cook, who's just had her third round of injections. She's suffered from headaches since she was 7 years old.

Would you like to read your medical notes? The Government has pledged that everyone will have online access to NHS records by October 2015. So will this change the way doctors write about their patients? Professor Steve Field - who's Chair of the NHS Future Forum and one of the driving forces behind the plan - hopes that it will mean more plain English that's easy to understand. His own surgery will give patients online access early next year.

One in 4 women develop fibroids at some time - benign, non cancerous growths in the wall of the uterus which can cause heavy painful periods. Surgery might be suggested to help wtih the discomfort - using keyhole techniques via the abdomen or vagina - a procedure known as myomectomy. But in recent years some less invasive techniques have become available to help relieve symptoms.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I am Ed Gamble, host of another BBC

0:04.6

podcast, The Traitors Uncloaked. But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like

0:09.9

Ellis and John's Saturday bonus episodes, the Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Rylen,

0:15.0

and comedy specials from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffel and Romesh Ranganathan.

0:19.9

However, and maybe I'm biased, it's really all about the traitors uncloked.

0:24.3

So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and podcasts, listen only on BBC Sounds.

0:29.5

Hello, I'm Dr Mark Porter and thank you for downloading this edition of Inside Health.

0:34.0

I hope you enjoy it.

0:34.9

Hello and welcome to Inside Health in today's program, a new

0:39.0

treatment for chronic migraine, Botox injections are to be offered on the NHS and likely to be

0:44.6

coming to a hospital near you soon. But how do they help headaches? We visit a neurology

0:50.0

clinic to find out. Access to your notes. What are your rights when it comes to looking at your

0:55.5

medical records? How do you exercise them? And just how realistic is the government's pledge to give

1:00.6

us all online access by 2015? And fibroids, we look at the latest options for treating them.

1:07.9

But first, high blood pressure. In last week's program, we suggested that at least

1:11.9

2 million people in the UK may have been misdiagnosed and put on treatment that they don't need

1:17.4

because they get artificially high readings when checked by a doctoral nurse, so-called

1:21.8

white coat hypertension. Well, that revelation prompted a number of you to get in touch,

1:26.3

and to help answer your queries, I'm joined now by Dr Cameron Abassi, editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

1:32.3

Cameron, why are falsely high readings so common?

1:34.3

Well, it's a very interesting syndrome if we describe it as that.

1:38.3

And what it means is that when people go to their doctor's surgery, their blood pressure

...

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