I'm treating a woman who lives in Florida. She is here for a month for treatment and she's worried about her blood pressure. She reported that her blood pressure that morning was 171/110! She was right to be worried. When I checked her blood pressure in the office, it was 143/94 on the right and 122/80 on the left. The problem was that her blood pressure on the right was 21 points higher than on the left! That is a big difference from side to side. Why? When someone has a cortical deficit, the cortex on the same side loses it's ability to inhibit the sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight part that raises blood pressure). This woman has a right cortical deficit. She doesn't have enough signal coming out of the right side of her brain to shut things down, like the stress response in her brainstem (pontomedullary junction). After the first treatment, her blood pressure was 126/88 on the right and 120/79 on the left. Do you know anyone with blood pressure problems? Tell them about chiropractic neurology and my office in Woodinville, WA. Thank you. Dr. Merry