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Symptoms and
Diagnosis of High Blood Pressure
It is commonly believed that high blood pressure is a
malady of old age and mainly afflicts males. This belief
is, however, not totally correct. The incidence of high
blood pressure ( 140 / 90 or more ) has been found to be
as high as 10 to 15 per cent in children and youths. It
rises to 25-30 per cent in the middle aged. The
possibility of a person above 50, developing high blood
pressure afresh, is very slight indeed.
That women suffer from high blood
pressure less commonly is a partially true belief.
Though it is true that the incidence of high blood
pressure in menstruating women is lower than that in
men, after menopause it increases to equal that in men.
In fact, a survey indicates that the incidence of high
blood pressure in women older than 65 years, is actually
higher than that in men.
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The belief that high blood pressure
afflicts only the affluent class is also not wholly
true. This disease does not differenciate between the
rich and the poor, high society and low society.
However, in America, more blacks have high blood
pressure than the whites. People believe that a person
with high blood pressure commonly suffers from headache,
burning of eyes, giddiness, palpitations,
nose-bleedings, distended veins and that he can
immediately be recognized from his flushed face. But
this belief has not even a grain of truth in it.
In fact, high blood pressure produces no symptoms at
all; at least not in the early stages. That is the
reason why it is termed a hidden disease or a silent
killer. In most patients, high blood pressure is
diagnosed accidentally, usually during a physical
examination undertaken for some other disease or for an
insurance policy. In quite a few patients, it is
diagnosed only after one of its complication (e.g.,
chest pain, a heart attack, a stroke or kidney failure )
presents itself.
Most patients start getting headaches only after they
are told that they have high blood pressure ! It should
be noted that no doctor can or should proclaim the
verdict of high blood pressure to a person after only a
single measurement of blood pressure. The diagnosis of
high blood pressure can only be made if the blood
pressure is found elevated on tow or more separate
occasions. Before diagnosing the high blood pressure as
of the essential ( simple) variety, all the causes of
secondary high blood pressure should be excluded. The
more common causes, symptoms and treatment of secondary
high blood pressure have been tabulated |
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Sl. No. |
Cause / Type |
Symptoms |
Investigations |
Treatment |
| 1 |
Co-arctation
(kinking) of the aorta. |
Headache, weakness f leg muscles, varicose veins on
the back and waist, etc., the blood pressure in
arm-arteries is high but than in leg-arteries is
normal or low. |
X ray,
E.C.G. |
Surgery |
| 2 |
A
disorder of Kidney/s (e.g., glomerulonephritis,
pyelone-phritis, systemic lupus arythymatosus, poly-arteritis
nodosa, polycystic kidney, renal artery stenosis,
etc., ) |
Onset in
very young or very old age; pain in the abdomen and
the back; peculiar sounds (bruits) in the abdomen on
ascultation; an absence of family history.
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Urine,
I.V.P.etc., |
In some
disorders surgery may help |
| 3 |
Hormonal
imbalance or long term use of hormone drugs
(disorders include pheochromocytoma. Cushing’s
syndrome, aldosteronism and use of contraceptive
pills). |
History
of consumption of contraceptive pills; excessive
muscle – weakness; hair on the face in women;
moon-like face, etc., patients with pheochromocytoma
get attacks of sweating and headache. |
History
of consumption of contraceptive pills; excessive
muscle – weakness; hair on the face in women;
moon-like face, etc., patients with pheochromocytoma
get attacks of sweating and headache. |
Stop
using contraceptive pills or hormone drugs; in some
disorders; surgery or medicines may help. |
| 4 |
Pregnancy (pressure
becomes high in only some pregnant women, not all).
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None except
elevation of pressure. |
None |
Medicines
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| 5 |
Long term use of
drugs called mono-amino oxidase inhibitors.
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None except
elevation of pressure. |
None |
Stop using the
culprit drugs. |
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