Systolic High Blood Pressure

The upper value is too high. The lower one moves within the normal range — or at least not in the same league. That is no coincidence, but a specific form of pressure. The doctor calls it isolated systolic hypertension, or ISH for short. The abbreviation says little. The process behind it says a great deal.

The systolic phase is the moment in which your heart contracts and propels blood out into the body. It is the ejection phase. The impulse. The sending outward. When this value is permanently too high, it means: your heart is pressing with too much force against a resistance that should not be this great. It works as though it were running up against something. As though it had to make itself heard with all its might.