High Blood Pressure Symptoms
High Blood Pressure Symptoms
High blood pressure usually has no symptoms, but it can cause serious problems such as stroke, heart failure, heart attack and kidney failure. You can control high blood pressure through healthy lifestyle habits and taking medicines, if needed. High blood pressure is often called a "silent killer" because many people have it but don't know it. Over time, people who do not get treated for high blood pressure can get very sick or even die.
High blood pressure often has no signs or symptoms. The only way to find out if you have high blood pressure is to be tested for it. Using the familiar blood pressure cuff, your doctor or nurse can easily tell if your blood pressure is high.
High Blood Pressure Causes
High blood pressure can cause
- blood vessels in your kidneys to narrow, which can cause kidney failure, and blood vessels in your eyes to burst or bleed, which may cause vision changes and can result in blindness.
- arteries throughout your body to "harden" faster, especially those in your heart, brain, kidneys, and legs. This can cause a heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure, or lead to amputation of part of the leg.
A blood pressure reading of 120/80 mmHg or less is considered normal. Usually, the lower, the better, although very low blood pressure can sometimes be a cause for concern and should be checked out by your doctor.
If either your systolic or diastolic blood pressure is higher than normal (120/80) but not high enough to be considered high blood pressure (140/90), you have pre-hypertension. Pre-hypertension is a top number between 120 and 139 or a bottom number between 80 and 89 mmHg. For example, blood pressure readings of 138/82, 128/70, or 115/86 are all in the "pre-hypertension" range.
If you have pre-hypertension, your chances of developing high blood pressure are greater than average unless you take action to prevent it. In fact, having pre-hypertension doubles a woman's chances of having heart disease or a stroke. That's a 100 percent increase. For men, the increase is 45 percent.
