Alternative Therapies

Blood Pressure refers to the amount of force with which your blood pushes against the artery walls. Without any pressure, your blood would just sit around in your blood vessels, like water in a turned-off hose. High Blood Pressure symptoms are not quite visible externally thus very difficult to diagnose.

With high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, your blood is being pushed too hard against the arteries. High blood pressure, if unchecked, can lead to serious damage in your body.

More than 65 million Americans have high blood pressure. Even though the cause of most of the cases isn’t known, the disease is easily detected and usually controllable.

Unfortunately, many people who have it don’t even know it. That’s because, until it causes serious problems, high blood pressure can’t be felt (although sometimes it causes morning headaches)

Just because you can’t feel it, that doesn’t mean you can afford to ignore it. About half of all heart attack victims have a history of high blood pressure, as do 80 to 90 percent of all stroke victims and a similar high percentage of people with kidney disease.

In hypertension or high blood pressure, there is an increase in arterial blood pressure. High BP may exist without any high blood pressure symptoms, that is the reason why it has been given the name of “The Silent Killer”.

Hypertension generally causes no symptoms so the people having high blood pressure don’t know about it until they measure their blood pressure.

Usually the first high blood pressure symptom appears as a pain in the lower portion of the neck and head, early in the morning on wake-up. But this pain soon goes away. So, a person doesn’t takes it seriously.

When the blood pressure reads more than 140/90 mm Hg then the person is suffering from high blood pressure.

High blood pressure symptoms
Following are some of the High blood pressure symptoms:

• Headache
• Noise in the ears
• Chest pain
• Difficulty in breathing
• Lack of sleep or Insomnia
• Palpitation
• Flushed face
• Easy fatigue
• Kidney problems
• Heart problems
• Impaired digestion
• Nervousness
• Tiredness
• Nose bleeding
• Emotional problems
• Body pain
• High sleeping tendency
• Vision defects
• Irregular heartbeat
• Blood in urine
• Nausea

If a person is affected by any of the above high blood pressure symptoms, then it is recommended to visit the physician immediately.

The most important fact to be realized about high blood pressure is that high BP may show no symptoms for years and may remain unrecognized but it causes progressive harm to the body organs like heart, eyes, brain, kidney and blood vessels.

High blood pressure is a condition which doesn’t have universally accepted signs and symptoms. However recurrent headache is one of the most important and ‘real’ high blood pressure symptoms. The high blood pressure symptoms are so mild that it is difficult to recognize that one is suffering from “the silent killer”.

Patients with high blood pressure have been found to be affected from frequent and severe headaches. Why patients of hypertension suffer from headaches?

Due to high blood pressure, the blood vessels are constricted by a process called autoregulation. These constricted blood vessels cause improper supply of blood to the brain region which causes headache.

Some of the high blood pressure symptoms are discussed below.

• Headache - It is the most common observable physical symptom of high BP. If you are troubled from frequent headaches, then it is the right moment to go and check your BP levels.
• Dizziness – If you feel dizzy or vertigo, then check your BP and seek medical care if you suffer from high BP. Dizziness is not usually caused by high blood pressure but some medication of high blood pressure causes side effects which in turn causes dizziness.
• Nausea – Nausea is not always the urge to vomit. In case of high blood pressure, nausea can be a feeling of sickness in the stomach without any other symptoms.
• Drowsiness - If you are feeling sleepy every time then you may have high BP.
• Blurred vision – In some of the rare cases high BP can cause loss of vision or blurred vision. So it will be better to seek medical help immediately in such cases. High BP can cause serious damage to the blood arteries present in the eye and this may affect the eyesight or can lead to impaired vision or blindness.
• Blood arteries in the retina could be damaged by high BP and this condition is known as hypertensive retinopathy. The blood arteries present in the eye could burst or start to bleed due to high BP.
• Nose bleeding – Due to high BP, the blood vessels present in the nose can sometimes burst and bleed. When there is a sudden rise in high BP then chances of nose bleeding are high.
• Coma - In some rare cases, high blood pressure may cause swelling in brain which may lead to coma and drowsiness.

Any of the High Blood Pressure Symptoms must not to be taken lightly. If you observe any symptom, then its high time that you get your blood pressure measured and seek medical help, if required.