High Blood Pressure: Causes, Symptoms, and Risks

When the blood force against the artery walls consistently elevates, you may be prone to obtaining high blood pressure. This condition, also called hypertension, hinders your heart’s ability to circulate blood throughout your body. Due to his complication, more stress is placed on your heart as it must work harder to pump blood. If left untreated, you may increase your risk of suffering from numerous, severe heart problems.

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Dangers of High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure is dangerous because of its ability to hide in the body. Not only can this condition be invisible to people undiagnosed with it, even those with higher reading levels of hypertension may not notice any symptoms. What’s more? You can potentially live with this condition throughout your life without knowing you have it. On rare occasions, you may experience other physical conditions such as headaches, nosebleeds, or shortness of breath.

However, having these symptoms doesn’t necessarily indicate high blood pressure. In fact, they tend to manifest once the condition becomes debilitating or life-threatening. That’s why, you should seek regular blood pressure monitoring to get a potential diagnosis before you risk getting a more severe health issue.

Blood Pressure Screenings

Not only that but regular blood pressure screens can help maintain your overall health. Keep in mind that your age and possible risk factors should determine the number of checkups you take. Although these screenings happen once someone turns 18 years old, it’s possible for children who are 3 years old or older to get tested for high blood pressure. After reaching 18, however, it’s recommended you get your blood pressure monitored every two years at least. Accordingly, if between the ages of 18 and 39, or 40 years old or older, you’re more likely to get hypertension. Therefore, they should get their blood pressure checked annually.

Primary and Secondary Hypertension

Ultimately, there are two significant risk factors that you should be aware of that influence your blood pressure. These factors include the blood’s resistance when coming into contact with the artery and the amount of blood pumped throughout the body. What’s more? You can also experience two types of high blood pressure: primary and secondary.

For starters, the primary type is called excessive hypertension and tends to develop slowly over time. Although healthcare researchers haven’t found any identifiable cause for this condition, they suggest plaque building up in the arteries may play a role in some way. On the other hand, secondary hypertension is another type of high blood pressure that is caused by certain underlying conditions. Moreover, secondary hypertension is most likely to form suddenly due to heightened pressure levels. Health conditions including congenital heart defects, adrenal gland tumors, specific thyroid problems, and even kidney disease are known to cause secondary hypertension.

Risk Factors of High Blood Pressure

In addition to health conditions, specific medications may raise the likelihood of you getting high blood pressure. Particularly, drugs like cough medicines and birth control pills can be a trigger. What’s more? Secondary hypertension can be caused by illegal substances like cocaine or sleeping disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea. Even anxiety risks elevating your blood pressure, especially during a medical check-up, which is a phenomenon called white coat hypertension.

Due to the heavy strain placed on the artery walls, high blood pressure can damage these blood vessels and surrounding organs. To demonstrate the possible issues, this heightened and consistent pressure may increase the risks of these health problems arising even more. If you have uncontrolled hypertension, you may suffer from various issues such as strokes and heart attacks, resulting from hardened arteries restricting blood flow. Likewise, you risk getting an aneurysm due to high blood pressure rupturing one of your weakened blood vessels, which can be fatal.

Health Conditions Causing Hypertension

Similarly, increased pressure can affect the heart as it must work harder due to hypertension. In particular, these heart walls thickening due to this forced pressure may cause heart failure called left ventricular hypertrophy. High blood pressure can weaken or narrow your blood vessels giving you kidney damage as a result. In comparison, your eyes can suffer as well as these torn or thick blood vessels may impair your vision.

Metabolic syndrome, a health condition involving irregular sugar breakdown, can lead to high blood pressure too. Due to this condition, your sugar levels may rise, which may lead to other health problems including heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Additionally, cognitive issues involving thoughts and memory can be a condition of consistently high blood pressure. When severe enough, you can get vascular dementia as it develops when blocked or narrowed arteries hinder blood flow to your brain.

Final Thoughts

Indeed, making lifestyle changes may help control or reduce high blood pressure. Therefore, it’s recommended that you talk to a healthcare provider about potential diet plans with little or no salt consumption and workout exercises to maintain a decent, healthy weight. Moreover, you should limit your alcohol and nicotine consumption and try to get around 7 to 9 hours of good sleep to reduce risk. However, if these lifestyle changes don’t help, you may need medication and frequent visits with your local healthcare provider for management or prevention.

Disclaimer: This article is intended simply to provide information. It does not replace the medical advice of a physician or other medical professional. Please speak with your doctor or therapist if you have any questions or concerns.

This article was written by David Gilbert