What is hypertension?

Hypertension or also known as High Blood Pressure is a medical condition whereby a person’s blood pressure rises to an unhealthy level. Normally a healthy person’s blood pressure should be in the range of less than 120 over 80 but while suffering from hypertension, a person’s blood pressure can reach higher than 180. This condition happens when your heart is doing extra efforts to pump out blood to your arteries. It hardens your arteries which in turn can lead to a stroke, kidney disease or heart failure.

While there are no exact causes of hypertension but there are some bad habits or other things which might contribute to it, including :

• Being overweight or obese
• Too much alcohol consumption
• Smoking
• Stress
• Older age
• A family history of high blood pressure
• Too much salt consumption
• Lack of physical activities
• Sleep apnea
• Thyroid disorders
• Chronic kidney disease

Hypertension is quite common and develops over time. Early detection is vital that is why regular blood pressure readings can help you and your doctor to diagnose the symptoms and hereby prescribe a treatment to avoid complications. As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure. Usually, the patients do not really notice any symptoms but it can cause great damage to your blood vessels and vital organs.

It is a silent medical condition and symptoms may take years or even decades to show up. As the level of blood pressure reaches a severe level, the symptoms would be more obvious. If you ever experience any symptom of severe hypertension as mentioned below, make sure to book an appointment with your medical practitioner. The symptoms are as follows :
• Nosebleeds
• Dizziness
• Chest pain
• Visual changes
• Blood in urine
• Headaches
• Shortness of breath
• Flushing

The best way to know if you have hypertension is to talk to your doctor about your risk for hypertension, he/she might give you some readings which might help to watch for your blood pressure. You should be more careful especially if your family has a history of high blood pressure. In this particular case, it would be convenient to have your blood pressure check twice a year. In that way, your doctor will be able to keep a track in case of any possibility of high blood pressure or if your symptoms are becoming problematic.