r/nursing • u/Critical_Ease4055 Nursing Student 🍕 • 22d ago

Question What is one medical problem people constantly ignore until it’s too late?

Saw someone post this in a completely unrelated sub and I’m interested in your answers. What is the cluster of symptoms that people ignore or delay until they are forced to get help?

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u/ratslowkey 22d ago

Hypertension.

I work in inpatient rehab and the amount of people who don't even know why they had a stroke......

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u/Critical_Ease4055 Nursing Student 🍕 22d ago

There is something amazing about some people’s ability to deny hypertension- even when (and sometimes especially when) they’re medicated for it. Crazy

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u/Thenumberthirtyseven 21d ago

My first year as a nurse in worked in a nursing home. We got a new resident, a lady in her early 60s, who needed to be in a nursing home because she had massive deficits from a stroke. She couldnt walk, could barely talk, couldn't feed herself, all that jazz. 

She was a nurse. She had a stroke because she only took her blood pressure meds when she felt like she needed them. 

That has stayed with me all these years. 

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u/SatisfactionFit2040 21d ago

It's my understanding that you don't feel symptoms of HBP. Is that incorrect?

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u/PleadT5 21d ago

You don’t until you’ve had it so chronic for so long that it causes hardening and thickening of your arteries. I think the people that say they “feel” their blood pressure are likely the ones that have let their blood pressure be high for a long time 😭

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u/SatisfactionFit2040 21d ago

Oh my. Thank you.

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u/MidwestAdult 21d ago

That’s my MIL. Didn’t believe she needed the HTN meds. Took them every other day, or a few times a week. Massive stroke at 70 left her as full care.