Just what is high blood pressure anyway and why are there so many different names for it?

Primary hypertension is believed to be an effect of the sort of lifestyle you have and eating the incorrect varieties of food, smoking, strain and decreased exercise can result in primary hypertension. The correction of these characteristics can serve to reduce blood pressure but the precise cause of primary hypertension is still unknown although numerous believe this can be an inherited condition.

Another type of high blood pressure is secondary hypertension which affects 5 to 10 in every 100 individuals. As it's name suggests, the patient is already suffering from a health condition such as cancer, liver failure, kidney failure or heart disease and this underlying illness causes problems with your blood pressure.

There is a type of hypertension that's common in pregnant women, called pregnancy-stimulated high blood pressure. If a pregnant lady should experience any symptoms including but limited to: head aches, sickness, low appetite and water retention, they should consult their doctor.

Another form of high blood pressure is called isolated systolic hypertension, and is found mainly in seniors. When individuals grow older their arterial blood vessels are not as supple as they used to be so the veins cannot handle the surges of blood, and this leads to plaque buildup in the veins. After a spell this may cause hardening of the arteries which in turn will elevate the systolic blood pressure.

A rare form of high blood pressure is known as labile hypertension which comes about when a person's blood pressure alters more than that which is thought normal. Blood pressure could go from high to low several times in the course of a few hours. This may be stimulated by anxiousness or too much caffeine but regardless the cause, hypertension must be handled by one means or another to stop from making other troubles which may turn into those that threaten life.

As you can see blood pressure problems come in various different forms and are treated in different ways.

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There are a good many individuals in The United States who suffer with hypertension and are entirely unconscious of the fact.

High Blood Pressure is recognized the silent killer because there are often no early warning signals for hypertension. By having frequent medical check-ups, hypertension can be named before it progresses to the stage of causing other conditions. The false thought that headaches, lightheadedness, tinnitus, benign skin tumors and confusedness are symptoms of blood pressure problems, is considered by many individuals. In fact, these symptoms can be from unidentified high blood pressure but usually do not appear until the individual has been suffering from hypertension for an indeterminate amount of time.

Often the first time anyone knows they have blood pressure issues is at the checkup with their doctor. The lack of signs and symptoms is what makes this illness so difficult to detect and treat.

Physicians state the initial symptom of this condition is when your blood pressure is repeatedly 140/90 or greater, which is a sign that the heart is working harder to compensate for the pressure level within your arteries so by monitoring your blood pressure on a regular basis you will know when it remains at 140/90 or greater.

A headache is sometimes considered to be related to high blood pressure. This headache normally begins in the morning and is usally at the back of the head rather than the forehead. But tension headaches or bad posture can also cause this symptom.

Secondary hypertension on the other hand is always associated with an existing condition such as cancer or diabetes. The doctors will already be keeping tabs on you to make sure your blood pressure doesnt increase.

As secondary hypertension is caused by other circumstances the indications will be present especially in upsets of the adrenal gland and kidney complaints. Some medicinal drugs which are taken for other disorders can induce high blood pressure so symptoms will be seen here also.

Due to the lack of hypertension signs and symptoms, the best way you can protect yourself and your family from this illness is via regular check ups with your doctor. If there is a family history of the disease you may want to consider investing in a blood pressure monitor to keep at home.

Ocular hypertension - the story our eyes tell us.

Many people are aware of high blood pressure and the fact that those with hypertension are susceptible to a number of different diseases. What many of them are not aware of, however, is the fact that this pressure is evident in all parts of our body at all times. One place which may be measured for high pressure from time to time is our eyes. As a matter of fact, ocular hypertension is a fairly common occurrence and can be a precursor for a number of different diseases, including glaucoma.

Just as with any other type of blood pressure, your ocular pressure is also measured in millimeters of mercury. If the pressure within your eyes is somewhere in the range of 10 to 21 mm then it is said to be normal. If, however, the pressure goes above 21 mm, you are said to have ocular hypertension. There are also some other determining factors that need to be taken into consideration. For example, the optic nerve needs to be normal in appearance, there cannot be any sign of glaucoma or of any other sort of ocular disease. Although ocular hypertension is not necessarily a disease of its own, it is a good indicator that an individual may develop glaucoma.

Actually, ocular hypertension may not have anything to do with the blood at all. It is an inability of the eye to drain all the fluids that it contains so that it becomes overinflated, for lack of a better term, with these fluids. This particular condition is usually treated with a variety of different medications that are applied at home. You should make sure that you are applying all of the medication until it is finished in order for the pressure to be as low as possible. Failure to follow through with all of the medication may result in an increase of pressure and additional problems with ocular hypertension.

More than likely, your doctor will refer you to an ophthalmologist in order to take care of this problem for you. Because a lot of problems can occur as a result of ocular hypertension, it is important that you seek treatment as soon as possible. After doing some testing, your ophthalmologist will be able to determine the extent of your ocular hypertension and to provide you with any prescriptions necessary in order to take care of the problem effectively.

Trends in Hypertension Prevalence are continuously studied by medical practictioners in order to  try and find out more about this silent killer. 

Blood pressure is rather like the weather – we all talk about it but few of us understand it and fewer still do anything about it.

What is high blood pressure? Blood must be under pressure or else it would not flow around our bodies via our arteries.  When you are young and healthy, the arteries are flexible and elastic. The heart pumps blood around the body and the blood flow is controlled without problem.  As we age, our arteries become less flexible and less elastic. They are less able to dilate and contract.   The blood pressure rises in order to push the blood through these less accommodating arteries to ensure that this vital oxygen supply reaches all parts of the body.

So everybody has blood pressure (by definition of being alive!).  But when does blood pressure become high blood pressure or hypertension?  High blood pressure is often referred to as the silent killer – the reason being that in most cases, people do not know that they have hypertension.  This condition can result in strokes and heart attacks yet often the first sign of blood pressure problems is the first heart attack.

All adults should have their blood pressure levels checked regularly.  Drs will provide a guide as to what is considered a normal reading.  But in reality every individual has a different norm.  What is normal for me may be considered low for you but as a guide the doctors would hope that your blood pressure result would be in the region of 120/80.

But what do these numbers mean and which one is the most important?  The heart muscle contracts and relaxes i.e. it acts like a pump.  Blood pressure rises to a peak when the heart contracts and falls when the heart relaxes. The contraction phase of the heart is called systole and is represented by the number on top i.e. in this example 120.  The relaxation phase is called diastole and is measured on the bottom i.e. 80.  Drs used to concentrate more on the diastolic level but recent research has shown that the systolic level of blood pressure may provide early indicators of future problems.

So the “ideal” level of blood pressure reading is around 120 -129 for the top number i.e systolic pressure and around 80 -84 for the bottom number i.e. diastolic pressure.  It is only when the systolic number rises above 140 and the diastolic pressure is over 90 that the blood pressure is considered raised.  High blood pressure is defined as that above 160 for systolic and 100 for diastolic.

Most people when hearing that you have high blood pressure will advise you to reduce your salt intake, increase your exercise level (under medical supervision), reduce your alcohol intake, increase your consumption of fruit and vegetables etc.  All of this advice is sound but it may not be the reason for your hypertension.  Most cases of hypertension are essential – this means that no cause is ever found.  And don’t forget that blood pressure in westernized society will increase with age.  But all adults should have regular blood pressure checks to allow you time to sort out any minor changes before they become major health issues.