What Causes High Blood Pressure, Symptoms And Treatment

High blood pressure is a serious condition that affects one in four adults. High blood pressure is dangerous because it makes the heart work harder to pump blood to the body. It is the force of blood against the walls of arteries. It makes the heart work harder to pump blood to the body and causes the hardening of the arteries. Normal blood pressure is less than 130/85. High blood pressure is higher than 140/90. Hypertension is between 120/80 and 140/90.

Causes of High Blood Pressure

Studies show many different kinds of secondary high blood pressure where the primary causes may be quite different from the continuing causes. An example is a rare disease known as coarctation of the aorta, a disease of the large artery carrying blood out of the heart. In this condition, the aorta is tightly constricted a few inches beyond its origin and then expands to its normal diameter. Undoubtedly, blood pressure must rise above the constriction and fall below it, just as it does when one compresses a hosepipe. Yet, if this constriction is removed surgically and the normal continuity of the aorta is restored, blood pressure usually takes several years to fall to normal level. The initial case of high blood pressure is the constriction, but the continuing cause is probably complex changes in circulating hormones, which function to maintain blood flow through the kidneys despite the obstruction, which may persist for a long time even after the obstruction, has gone.

Pressure in a hose can be regulated either by controlling the rate at which fluid passes through it or by widening it. Pressure inside your arteries can cause the muscles that line the walls of the arteries to thicken. Your blood pressure is at its highest when the heart beats, pumping the blood. When the heart is at rest, between beats, your blood pressure falls. Still, for most of your waking hours, your blood pressure stays pretty much the same when you are sitting or standing still.

The last cause is one in which you have absolutely no control over. It is genetics. On its own, genetics doesn’t cause high blood pressure, but it feeds all the other causes. Think of it as fertilizer so to speak. If you have a family history of high blood pressure, then your very prone to getting it yourself. With the right genes you can have a high fat and sodium diet, never exercise, drink tons of coffee and stress out on a daily basis, yet still have a reasonably low blood pressure. With the wrong genes, even a little too much salt may be enough to kick your blood pressure into a dangerous range.

Symptoms of High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure has no symptoms. But if you feel a dull ache in the back of your head when you wake up one morning, or you have few more nosebleeds than normal, you could have a high blood pressure. Headaches, nosebleeds, and dizziness are also common warning signs and symptoms of high blood pressure, but these do not occur until high blood pressure has reached a more advanced stage. However, many people even with the highest blood pressure readings do not feel any of these symptoms.

Palpitations, tension headaches and hyperventilation are symptoms of anxiety and so are common in people who are anxious or frightened. If they already have these symptoms and are then unfortunately found to have high blood pressure, then the diagnosis may confirm their fears and reinforce the symptoms. Others may get palpitations for the first time after they have been told that they have high blood pressure. They are not caused by high blood pressure itself, but by fear of it and what the diagnosis means. The symptoms usually disappear, although not always immediately, with adequate explanation of what a diagnosis of high blood pressure really means.

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is considered a modern day disease that can lead to heart disease and stroke. As soon as symptoms are apparent, the proper treatment should be sought immediately. Hypertension, if left untreated, can cause the heart to enlarge due to the increased force necessary to pump blood against the greater resistance in your vessels. It is often called “the silent killer”. It affects nearly 50 million Americans

High Blood Pressure Treatment

Complimentary Therapies – Right medication will curb the level of blood pressure. Living a life with the right practice and involvement will help you to get better relief. It is advisable to join any meditation group or even you can buy books that teach you meditation. In spite of increasing the level of blood pressure, meditation will put an end to the trouble. Moreover, meditation will make your mind to achieve balance pose and position.

Acupuncture combined with electric stimulation or electro-acupuncture can lower elevations of blood pressure in human beings. When the research was conducted for the first time, acupuncture needles were inserted on the inside of the forearm just above the wrist, but to no avail. Researchers then started adding electric stimulation to the needles, which means that electric would start flowing from the needles to the body.

High Blood Pressure – A New Approach To Treatment

High blood pressure causes major health problems for many people around the world and work goes on all the time to improve the monitoring and control of blood pressure in patients who have the condition. A new study has shown that pharmacists may be very good at keeping an eye on the BP levels in groups of selected patients. A new bit of internet software and a secure Web interface helped control BP in a group of about three thousand American patients.

Those with high BP are at risk of stroke or heart attack if the problem is not brought under better control. Both stroke and heart attack can lead to either early death or a severe deterioration in the quality of life. Smoking, diabetes and a high cholesterol level are also commonly found in those people with high BP and the combination of these factors is extremely dangerous if not dealt with properly.

Many people with hypertension / high BP need to take medication on a daily basis. Sometimes just one tablet a day is enough but in many cases it needs a combination of BP tablets and some medication to lower the cholesterol level too. All of this can result in side effects due to the interactions of the BP drugs with each other and with any other medication that the patient is taking. Almost all of those who take regular blood pressure medications will experience drug related side effects of one sort or another. Common side effects are fatigue, cough and – in men – problems with a loss of sex drive and a loss of sexual arousal due to the BP meds.

Hypertension (the other name for high blood pressure) is often poorly controlled and BP levels often run high even in those who are on medication every day. Research done previously has shown benefit by adding input from a nurse or pharmacist into the patients care pathway.

The research used a home BP monitor with the results supervised by a pharmacist – the patients fed their results into a secure web based form and the pharmacist reviewed the readings and worked closely with each patient. The group studied were all adults between 25 and 75 – all had poorly controlled hypertension but were otherwise well.

The patients were divided randomly into three groups: group one had their usual care; group two had home BP monitoring and secure patient Web services training only but no pharmacist input and group three had the full package of home BP monitoring and Web training plus pharmacist care management delivered through Web communications.

The results showed that there was no real difference in BP readings in the two groups who did not have a pharmacist looking after them – both groups saw no real change in their BP control. But the group with the pharmacy input saw much better results. Fifty percent of the patients developed readings that were normal when they had previously been high all the time.

It looks like Web-based pharmacy care of people with hypertension is feasible and can improve BP control and I suspect we may see a lot more of this kind of thing in the future.

Dr Gordon Cameron is a blood pressure specialist based in Scotland. You can read much more about how to lower blood pressure at his website. He has also written extensively about the issues that arise with a blood pressure too low