Did you know you can have hypertension and not even be aware of it? Hypertension symptoms are often nonexistent or very vague and difficult to detect in persons who have uncomplicated, primary hypertension. This means a hypertension sufferer may walk around for years accumulating damage to his or her internal organs from an elevated blood pressure and still have no symptoms at all. This is why hypertension has justifiably earned the name of the "silent killer".
If a person has no hypertension symptoms, how is the problem discovered? In most cases, hypertension is diagnosed after a patient is found to have an elevated blood pressure on a routine clinical exam in his or her doctor's office. After several follow up blood pressures on different occasions are noted to be elevated, the diagnosis of hypertension is made and treatment is started.
Primary hypertension, or persistently elevated blood pressure in the absence of a known underlying cause, is the most common form of elevated blood pressure, accounting for 90 of cases, there is an underlying cause for the hypertension, which can be related to kidney disease, medications, or some other underlying medical problem. In these cases of secondary hypertension, a person may have symptoms due to the underlying medical condition that's causing the elevated blood pressure.
Even though most persons with primary hypertension don't experience hypertension symptoms, severe blood pressure rises that occur over a short period of time may lead to a condition called a hypertensive crisis. Hypertensive crisis, which is considered a medical emergency, can give the sufferer a variety of symptoms including blurred vision, headache, light sensitivity, and vomiting. In addition, long standing, untreated hypertension can lead to a multitude of hypertension symptoms based on the damage incurred to internal organs as a result of the elevated blood pressure. These can include visual changes, chest pain, swelling of the extremities, and irregular heart rhythms.
As you can see, hypertension is not a disease that can be ruled out based on the absence of symptoms. If a person does have hypertension symptoms, chances are they have a secondary form of the disease or some underlying organ damage as a result of their elevated blood pressure. Because primary hypertension can be present in the absence of symptoms, it's important that individuals have a yearly blood pressure screen to rule out undiagnosed hypertension. It's a quick and easy screen that really does save lives!
