Talk:Travelling with high blood pressure

Usable?

Is this article Usable, in your opinion? If not, what improvements are needed to make it Usable? And what would be needed for it to be a Guide? Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:19, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I think that it is usable. I would add a couple of things: a warning at the start that we can only give general guidance, and that your own doctor will give you specific advice; some links to authoritative sources. AlasdairW (talk) 21:43, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

The disclaimers at this point aren't at the beginning of the article; should we put something in italics, such as "This article gives some suggestions to get you started, but they are no substitute for a consultation with a physician"? What kinds of authoritative sources would people suggest? Do you know of any focused specifically on travel? That would be ideal. By the way, I included the information about walking around the plane because I read it, but I don't know the reason for it. Is there a fear that people with hypertension would be more prone to deep vein thrombosis, due to sitting for a long time? Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:21, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

What do you all think about this? This is part of a comment by Commons user Charlejsharp, which he kindly gave me permission to repost here:

@Ikan Kekek:, the article you edited with skill (and I'm not criticising you), Wikivoyage:Traveling with high blood pressure, is to me a very dangerous article. It is surely irresponsible to offer this sort of medical, or pseudo-medical, advice, with no citations or references. The advice could be sensible. It could also be dangerous. Of course on Wikipedia, it could be quickly rejected as OR or sprinkled with citation needed comments. I wonder if someone could sue an editor if they followed the advice in this article, then died? Charles (talk) 14:13, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I did add a bolded disclaimer, but I think he and AlasdairW above are right that sources should be linked. Does anyone have suggestions of what to link? Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:56, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I had a quick look when I first made the suggestion, and no great links cropped up, but the following may be useful as a starter - all UK sites:

• NHS article on blood pressure.
• Blood Pressure UK charity - FAQs on flying and decongestants.
• British Heart Foundation (charity) page on travel.
• British Heart Foundation book on bllod pressure - see p57 "What about Holidays".

I hope others can find more links. AlasdairW (talk) 23:50, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I added some of those links and also a link to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration page for daily sodium intake recommendations. I've also added some more information that was on some of those pages and several more disclaimers. Please read over the article, see if it's better and edit in any way that you think would improve the article and be more helpful and less potentially dangerous to readers with high blood pressure. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:33, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

A few more links AlasdairW (talk) 00:07, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

• USA Today
• Boston.com
• Goodtogo - a UK travel insurance company
• Staysure insurance

Thanks a lot. My first reaction is that I think we shouldn't link to websites except for official ones or those of scientific or health organizations (e.g., a heart association). The rest of the links could be useful on this talk page, though. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:24, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Actually, those insurance links are really helpful. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:50, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Mission creep?

In line with the issue pointed out in the above discussion, are we really the right place for people to turn with medical problems or to give medical advice? Our not having citations is surely a benefit for out destination articles, but for articles like this it might be a hindrance. Furthermore if we have "traveling with high blood pressure", why not "traveling with low blood pressure" or "traveling jumping on one leg while wearing a green sweater"? I can see how this might serve the traveler, but giving wrong or outdated advice might not. And in some cases it might be better to link to [insert trusted institution who do this for a living] and say our readers "If you suffer from X, talk to your doctor or look here, they got you covered". Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:46, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, this certainly has to do with travel. There are special challenges to traveling with high blood pressure, as opposed to staying home with it. However, I think both citations and disclaimers are important in articles that touch on medical or legal questions. And the reason I started this article is that I have been treated for high blood pressure for years and experienced a particularly challenging situation around the turn of last year, so I thought someone might benefit from considering some of the things I had to consider. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:59, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I'll add that a lot of what's in this is a combination of the advice I got from my cardiologist and my own experience as both a traveler with uncontrolled blood pressure (over a year ago) and controlled blood pressure (the great majority of the time). Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:35, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

These sort of articles should simply point out the issues and ideally point people to learned sites, but NOT give advice unless it is a direct quote from a learned source. Charlesjsharp (talk) 10:54, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Having articles that consist of only direct quotes seems like too far a deviation from Wikivoyage style to be acceptable. How far would you take this? Do you think that direct quotes from a learned source are needed to advise people whose blood pressure might not be fully controlled to get a blood pressure monitor and check its accuracy against professional equipment their doctor uses? To bring spare batteries for the blood pressure monitor with them on their trip? To buy the medications you need before you go? How about the advice for people on low-salt diets to avoid all sorts of things that were made before service in restaurants (e.g., stocks, salad dressings, most sauces), or that you are best off having your own kitchen if you want to control your salt intake? I am already deviating from the Wikivoyage norms as shown at WV:External links by having inline links to governmental, scientific or association/foundation (e.g., Blood Pressure Association) sites on specific points. If you feel that there should be more linking, please point out which things you think need it, and then we can look for more links, keeping in mind that this isn't Wikipedia and we probably can't have dozens of links throughout the article. One thing we could consider doing is having a "Learn more" section that includes relevant authoritative links, although that stretches the limits of Wikivoyage's ban on "External links" sections. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:06, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

I just did some more edits, inserting more (possibly too much) advice to consult a doctor and more links to authoritative sources, further qualifying some statements and also mentioning that some people cannot safely ingest 2.3 g of sodium per day. I think I've added links to all the places that really need them, but please mention any other things you feel could improve the article, and thanks for your initial objection, which I think has prompted significant improvements to the article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:33, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm not active on Wikivoyage Ikan, all I was saying that Wikivoyage should be super-careful, and it seems as if that's your approach too. Charlesjsharp (talk) 10:08, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

I probably wasn't careful enough at first, as you initially warned. It'll be interesting to see whether the number of inline links I inserted will be accepted once a wider number of Wikivoyagers become aware of them. If not, the article might be squeezed to death between Hobbitschuster's objections that up-to-date links are needed and orthodox Wikivoyage opposition to links other than to primary sources (the ones running listed establishments and the tourism office for a city) and the Wikipedia article and Commons category for the article's topic. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:13, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry it took me so long to respond to this, Ikan. Lots going on offwiki for me.

Frankly, I think anyone who takes a travel guide for an authoritative source of medical advice is a fool to begin with, and I think most of the health information given in this guide falls under the category of common sense. So I think any concerns that we're treading on dangerous ground here or compromising the safety of our readers are wildly overblown.

For me, Altitude sickness is the yardstick to use in this scenario. It contains an infobox with essentially the same standard "this is not a replacement for real medical advice from your doctor" disclaimer as in the second paragraph of this article, but doesn't go so far as to include inline links in violation of xl. If we were okay enough with that setup to feature it as FTT a few months back, I think it would be safe to jettison the inline links in this article. However, if you construe the article's current status as a workable compromise between your and Charlesjsharp's positions, I would sooner defer to that.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:42, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. Having worked the links into the article, I'd be loathe to remove them now. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:18, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Teaspoon as measure

I just changed 2,3 g of sodium being about a teaspoon (according to the source), from less than half a teaspoon (in the previous revision). Was the amount changed independently of the former recommendation or had somebody changed to what they believed was equivalent to the mass? Could this be due to different tea spoon sizes? Is "tea spoon" a reliable measure internationally or should we avoid it in this kind of context? --LPfi (talk) 08:40, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of the issue, but I see it here. Are the metric or imperial teaspoons often used? If this comparison would be likely to confuse people, it may be necessary to either give different equivalents for different kinds of teaspoons or just present the number of grams. I certainly found it useful to know about how much of a teaspoon of salt I should be shooting for daily, but we can always keep things simple and leave such details to the reader if they so desire. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:55, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I think few readers will convert micrograms to any useful measure, so I think we should use some measure that is directly useful. Hopefully there is some measure that is internationally understood and easy to grasp. --LPfi (talk) 10:36, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

It seems the teaspoons of the converter are all about 5 ml (4.93–5.92), close enough for our purposes, I think. (Thanks for looking it up.) --LPfi (talk) 10:41, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Maybe we shouldn't use teaspoons. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:14, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I think that a "teaspoon" is a useful way of visualising very approximately how much salt we are talking about. If I see that a recipe requires a teaspoon of something I will just take a spoon that I use for stirring tea, and it isn't a measure that I would use in writing a recipe if a 50% size error mattered. In this case I would say "6g of salt (about a level teaspoon)"