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Hypertension Treatment

Kevin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:05:51 +0000

The reason why hypertension is so lethal and is billed as a silent killer is because it leads to kidney disease, heart failure, heart attacks, cardiac arrest and strokes. It is a modern lifestyle disease that is induced by the worries, tensions, anxieties and the relentless rat race of the urban industrial world.

Hypertension treatment overview

All treatments for any medical condition have a goal and the aim of hypertension treatment is the minimizing of the elevated blood pressure and the protection of the significant bodily organs such as the kidneys, heart and brain. If treatment is not started as soon as the condition is detected, the condition can deteriorate and the vital bodily organs can get damaged.

Hypertension treatment usually targets reduction in heart failure in more than 50% of the cases, minimizing of heart attacks or cardiac arrests in 25% to 20% of the cases and a reduction in the frequency or occurrence of strokes where the success rate is at an average of 40% to 35%.

The stages of hypertension
Stage 2 hypertension records a pressure of 160/100 mm hg or even greater than that.
Stage 1 hypertension records a pressure of 160-140/100-90 mm hg

When the pressure is pegged at higher than 140/90 mm hg, the stage is referred to just as hypertension.

Prehypertension stage is that stage when the mercury reads 140-120/90-80 mm.
Anything below this but not lower than 120/80 mm hg is normal blood pressure.

Hypertension medication
You can keep hypertension under control and bring down the level of the high blood pressure through common medications like Vasotec, Toprol XL, Norvasc, Maxzide, Lotrel, Lopressor, Lisinopril, HCTZ or Hydrochlorothiazide, Diovan, Cozaar, Clonidine and Atenolol.

However the doctor will prescribe these medications for you and decide which medicine suits you better and in what dosage you should consume that particular medicine. All medicines won’t suit everyone and you should certainly not consume medicines on your own. Always seek medical advice before taking any hypertension drug.

Other medications for hypertension include calcium channel blockers, beta blockers, diuretics, ARBs or Angiotensin II receptor blockers and Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors or ACE.

You also have to incorporate lifestyle and dietary changes and perform exercises.

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Hypertension Symptoms

Kevin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:24:41 +0000

Hypertension is a kind of lifestyle disease and it is often referred to as a silent killer because it approaches surreptitiously, nestles down in the body and attracts or makes the body vulnerable to diseases like strokes, cardiac arrests, heart diseases, heart failure etc which can reduce the life span dramatically if not checked.

Relentless worry, anxiety, tension, the fast pace of modern urban industrial life and the difficult conditions and troubled times through which people have to live and be a part of the rat race, induce hypertension.

All these factors pump up the adrenaline that flows in the blood stream and this leads to the elevation of the blood pressure or hypertension.
If the blood pressure is constantly perched at 140/90 mm hg or consistently stays even higher, you will know you have hypertension for this is the first and the most evident symptom.

Your heart has to work harder to deal with the pressure of blood which is too strong and is flowing through the arteries. The arteries also grow tighter and the arterial system in the whole body runs the risk of getting damaged and this will in turn cause damage to the eyes, kidneys and heart.

You have to watch out for symptoms even more carefully if you already suffer from kidney diseases or diabetes. And you have to take concrete steps to lower the pressure of the blood to a manageable and later on to a healthy level.

The 12 symptoms of hypertension are papilloedema, confusion, dizziness, tinnitus, morning headache, and headache, non specific symptoms where the symptoms are usually vague and mild. In some cases, there are no symptoms at all at first, at least no visible symptoms that common people can identify and which are usually discovered accidentally by the doctor when an individual goes for regular health check up or for curing/diagnosing some other disease/health condition.

A very obvious symptom is however bleeding from the nose and fainting, but then they can be confused with the symptoms of various other diseases. Women who have undergone hysterectomy in the past often run the risk of contracting hypertension a few years later.

Many of the symptoms are a direct result of the complications of hypertension and are similar to the symptoms of heart failure and heart disease.

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Hypertension advice

Kevin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:20:55 +0000

The other name for high blood pressure is hypertension. In short it is also known as HPN or HTN. This is a chronic medical condition which is marked by the blood pressure always being elevated. In men hypertension is usually construed as arterial hypertension.

You can classify hypertension into two categories – secondary and primary or essential.

Essential/primary hypertension
In this particular medical condition there is no specific cause which can properly explain the condition of a patient.
Secondary hypertension

In this particular type of hypertension, another medical condition or disease like tumors or kidney diseases lead to the secondary hypertension later on. That means, other kinds of diseases result in or create high blood pressure.

Did you know why persistent hypertension is so dangerous?

That is because among other things, chronic renal failure, arterial aneurysm, heart failure, heart attacks, strokes etc are caused by hypertension. It also cuts short the expectancy of life, even if the arterial blood pressure is only moderately elevated.

In extremely severe cases of high blood pressure, where the blood pressure has risen to an abnormal high, in at least 50% of the cases or even more than that, the expectancy of life is reduced to a mere few years. The duration of life can be lengthened and perhaps the condition can be reversed if appropriate treatment can be started in time.

Causes of hypertension – primary hypertension
Unfortunately, no specific cause or reason has been found that can result in hypertension. But of course, doctors and researchers have isolated several contributing factors such as age, genetics, insulin resistance, rennin homeostasis, salt sensitivity, consumption of Liquorice, sleep apnea and obesity.

Causes of hypertension – secondary hypertension
In this case there are specific causes, but those can be identified in only a handful of cases where elevated arterial pressure has been reported. In almost 95% to 90% of the cases, no specific cause can be identified, according to the American Heart Association.

In the rest of the cases comprising of only 10% to 5%, the underlying cause is probably a renal defect or an endocrine defect. If this can be rectified, blood pressure will return to normal.

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