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If you have been diagnosed with sleep apnea, it is important that you adopt and maintain healthy lifestyle habits and use your prescribed treatment. Read more about how to use and care for your breathing device or mouthpiece, how your doctor may monitor whether your treatment is working, and when you may need a repeat sleep study. Learn other tips to keep you safe if you have sleep apnea.

Factors that increase your risk for high blood pressure include unhealthy lifestyle habits such as eating too much sodium, drinking too much alcohol, and being physically inactive. Other risk factors include age, family history and genetics, race and ethnicity, and sex.

If you have been diagnosed with high blood cholesterol, it is important that you continue your treatment. Follow-up care can vary depending on your cholesterol levels, your risk of having a cardiovascular complication such as a heart attack or a stroke, and your response to treatment.

If you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, it is important that you continue your treatment plan. Following your treatment plan, getting regular follow-up care, and learning how to monitor your condition at home are important. These steps can help prevent or delay complications that high blood pressure can cause.

Your doctor may diagnose you with high blood cholesterol based on your medical and family history, your physical exam, or whether you have consistently high low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels on repeat lipid panel blood tests. Your doctor may do more tests to see if other medical conditions may be causing high blood cholesterol.

Eating too much sodium and having certain medical conditions can cause high blood pressure. Taking certain medicines, including birth control pills or over-the-counter cold relief medicines, can also make blood pressure rise.

If you or your child has been diagnosed with asthma, work with your doctor to learn how manage it yourself. You can work with your doctor to develop a treatment plan, called an asthma action plan.

If you or your child has been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, it is important that you continue your treatments, follow up with your doctors, and learn how to manage the condition.

Genetic testing may be performed to look for carriers, as well as to screen relatives of people who have cystic fibrosis.

Your doctor may recommend a stent to provide support inside an artery that has become narrowed by plaque buildup from atherosclerosis, or for lung airways that have narrowed due to other medical conditions. Your doctor will discuss the risks and benefits of the procedure with you. Sometimes, a stenting procedure is not recommended or another procedure is recommended instead. Learn more about the use of stents in the following conditions.