“What do kids and salt have in common? Both of them increase blood pressure”. If you are a father or a mother, you understood what the joke is about. If you are over thirty and still do not have kids, you might feel relieved and will pay more attention to your salt intake. But wait! Did you know it is not necessary to have symptoms to check on your blood pressure? Believe it or not, there are lots of people at severe risk of undergoing a heart attack or similar problems because they have not found out the problem with them is their blood pressure.
So check on the next list, just in case…
1) Headache
Most people believe the best evidence to indicate high blood pressure is having constant headaches, but let us tell that it is not. Of course, there are exceptions. For example, in the case of hypertensive crisis. The situation might be like this: suddenly your blood pressure is 180/120 mm Hg or higher, and you have a headache along with an uneasy feeling. Wait five minutes and recheck your levels. In case of constant reading of 180/120 mm Hg or higher, call 9-1-1.
Besides, there is another possibility when someone is undergoing headaches frequently: cerebrovascular disease. Constant headaches might be the symptom of ischemic stroke and intracranial hemorrhage, and this affection is part of the problems caused by high blood pressure.
When an individual cope with long-standing hypertension, he or she may get; as a result, hemorrhagic and atheroembolic stroke or encephalopathy. As long as this pathology is related to the heart, this organ will increase its mass due to left ventricular hypertrophy. And, when a heart is enlarged because of hypertension, it is in real danger of arrhythmia and death. All this explanation is to emphasize that headaches will be the consequences but not the symptoms of high blood pressure.
2) Palpitations
That uncomfortable experience of feeling as though the heart is pounding or racing. Going through an irregular or rapid heartbeat or as if it is skipping beats, all that describes the word palpitations. You can also feel them in your chest, neck and throat. Even though they may seem frightening, they are not always dangerous.
Now, are palpitations an indicative of high blood pressure? The short answer is: no. of course, they can be a sign of a serious condition because palpitations sometimes represent an abnormal heart rhythm or arrhythmia, and this does require medical attention and needs to be treated promptly. Just an example, arrhythmias in the lower chamber of a patient’s heart often need urgent medical care and involve ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation. This is a severe medical condition that could compromise your life.
Now, palpitations may have milder causes, such as nervousness and anxiety. Thus, it is important to ask your doctor if you’re continuously feeling this symptom.
3) Facial blushing
No need to explain that there are a lot of reasons for this to occur, but the medical concept implies the moment when blood vessels in the face dilate. It might be unpredictable, but it commonly appears due to sun exposure or cold weather. If you have some spicy food or a hot drink, it can reflect on your face. In case you have applied some skin-care products, your face may tell as well.
There are some other causes, for example, emotional stress, alcohol consumption, exposure to heat or hot water, and exercise. Those activities and situations may raise blood pressure temporarily. But, the main question goes here: Is facial blushing a symptom of high blood pressure? Although notorious flushing is probably to happen while your blood pressure is over normal values, high blood pressure is not the real cause of facial flushing. Evidence shows that not every patient experiences this symptom. In fact, people undergoing issues with elevated blood pressure usually have somewhat lighter skin.
4) Nosebleeds
Let us consider Marian’s example from Brazil. A particular day she was afraid. All of a sudden, she could feel her nose bleeding without restraint. “I wondered if I was going to die,” she remembers. Then a doctor informed her about the cause for her nosebleed: high blood pressure. “But I feel fine,” Marian replied. It was then when she discovered that many people do not know they have high blood pressure because they have no symptoms.
Epistaxis, (the medical term for nose bleeding) is a common complaint. Although it may cause significant concern; it is rarely life-threatening. Nosebleeds are common during childhood, but generally, they are benign, self-limiting, and spontaneous. Bleeding is caused, in most cases, by vascular fragility or nasal packing. If someone has recurrent or severe bleeding and no medical therapy has worked out, there are some surgical options available. But, What about nosebleed and high blood pressure?
We have to set this clear again. The occurrence of epistaxis is not a symptom of hypertension. In fact, the relationship between them is often misunderstood. Of course, patients with epistaxis show elevated blood pressure, and it is more common in hypertensive patients. The reason is simple: due to vascular fragility in the event of hypertensive crisis. However, it is not a direct symptom of high blood pressure, and you may have high blood pressure without a single episode of epistaxis.
5) Visual problems
Have you heard the term “hypertensive encephalopathy”? It was first used in 1928. In that time some encephalopathic findings were associated with the accelerated malignant phase of hypertension and the retinal area. In other words, when high blood pressure is not discovered and treated on time, it can also affect the patient’s eyesight and lead to eye disease.
The terms “accelerated” and “malignant” describe correctly how bad it might be for the retina the presence of hypertension.
The retina is the area at the back of the eye where we focus the images we see. That’s why this eye disease has the medical term of hypertensive retinopathy, and it is the one that will cause vision problems, usually related to headaches. The damage can be severe if hypertension is not treated.
6) Anxiety
There is no doubt that your mental state does have an impact on blood pressure and heart function, either positive or negative. So, we can address anxiety as both a cause and a consequence of high blood pressure. Repetitive episodes of anxiety can cause spikes in your blood pressure. Although there is no evidence of anxiety as a cause of long-term hypertension, there are plenty of studies showing that, if temporary spikes occur frequently, as in every day, the damage caused to blood vessels and heart, can lead to chronic high blood pressure. Besides, when someone undergoes anxiety, it is more likely to resort to other unhealthy habits (smoking, drinking alcohol in excess, overeating) that can increase the patient blood pressure.
Read Also: Panic Attack (Anxiety Attack) Symptoms; 10 Most Common Symptoms!
7) Confusion and altered consciousness
Remember hypertensive encephalopathy? Well, its symptoms begin within 12–48 hours after a sudden and sustained increase in blood pressure. Due to this, alterations in consciousness show up some hours later. Then the patient experiences impaired judgement and memory. A feeling of confusion will also appear. All these symptoms reveal the danger of turning into a coma if the condition is not treated, because all the neurological frame may tend to worsen.
8) Difficulty to breathe
First of all, in order to relate breathing issue to high blood pressure, there should be blood pressure higher than 180/120 mmHg. In addition, doctors should observe acute pulmonary damage. They may call this condition pulmonary edema in a hypertensive emergency.
Since it is called emergency, this event happens all of a sudden, so a patient will need competent and rapid-acting medications (intravenously) to lower the elevated blood pressure safely. This can protect pulmonary function, lower symptoms, decrease complications, and result in a better clinical outcome.
Now, there is a catch. When a patient has difficulty to breathe due to a hypertensive emergency may have stenosis of the subclavian artery. This stenosis may lead to a tricky normal or low blood pressure if it is measured at the brachial artery, the ipsilateral one. That’s why many people trying to take their own blood pressure would get an incorrect reading. Thus, if you believe you’re having a hypertensive crisis, talk to your doctor right away.
9) Chest pain
Up to this point we can mention that high blood pressure is the result of arteries that have become hardened, causing them to remain relatively narrow. Then, this lack of space for the bloodstream to flow may severely affect the oxygen supply to the heart, causing a disease called angina pectoris. As a matter of cultural topic, the medical term comes from Latin, so the literal meaning is “the choking of the chest.”
The damaged lining of the arteries starts depositing fat on their walls, so when the blood flow is interrupted, the heart works harder and faster to supply the body with Oxygen-rich blood. This continuous labor causes the heart to increase its muscle mass, but in the same reduced space. Now mix the factors: compromised blood supply to the coronary arteries, reduced oxygen exchange, and heart muscle working harder. First comes the chest pain, and it might be a sign of myocardial infarction or heart attack. All these events are a consequence, not a cause of high blood pressure.
10) Complications in pregnant women
When addressing hypertension in pregnancy, we must mention statistics. Those numbers say that hypertension is one of the most common medical problems for pregnant women: it affects up to 10% of pregnancies. And out of the disorders related to blood pressure during gestation, there is a very common combined one: preeclampsia and eclampsia.
Let us first define hypertension in pregnant women. It is when blood pressure exceeds 140/90 mm Hg before pregnancy or before 20 weeks’ gestation. So, preeclampsia is when tests in a pregnant woman show she has high blood pressure (i.e. higher than 140/90 mm Hg).
These high blood pressure reading would cause severe problems in pregnant women and put there in high risk for miscarriage. Moreover, when the problem is not properly addressed, they can turn preeclampsia into eclampsia, which features one or more convulsions in association with the high blood pressure.
11) Seizures
Think of your brain as a powerful bioelectrical mechanism with sharp and exact functions that cannot be altered. Imagine the consequences of a minimal change in its electrical activity. That is what seizures are about: abnormal paroxysmal discharge of cerebral neurons due to cortical hyperexcitability. These changes can cause dramatic, noticeable symptoms like violent shaking or loss of control, but in some other cases may not cause any symptoms.
Seizures can be triggered by a variety of health problems and other apparently normal conditions. Certain people may start a seizure after certain visual stimuli, other types of seizure can be triggered after a very large meal or during an episode of intense anxiety. That’s where blood pressure becomes a risk factor of seizures. Either high blood pressure or low blood pressure creates an alteration to the blood flow in the brain and may affect the normal function of the neurons, leading to seizures in susceptible patients.
- Now we have moved through the most common symptoms of high blood pressure, we should highlight that it would be a mistake to wait for high blood pressure to develop before taking positive steps. It would be silly waiting for signals after we have established high blood pressure as an asymptomatic disease. Patients should not neglect check-ups. A healthful lifestyle should be a concern from an early age. Taking care now will result in a better quality of life in the future.
- It is better to start eating healthily if you want to prevent high blood pressure. Beans, dark green vegetables, bananas, melons, carrots, beets, tomatoes, and oranges are in the chef’s recommendation. Another measure is controlling your consumption of foods containing significant proportions of sodium, such as canned meats, salami, ham, sausage, and other cold cuts. Finally, another piece of advice is keeping your levels of stress at bay with breathing techniques and other relaxation exercises. You can also increase your physical activity, which will improve your mood, reduce your stress levels, and improve your cardiovascular health at the same time. Moderate aerobic exercise (walking, cycling, and swimming) for 30 to 45 minutes, three to five times a week is the average recommendation.
References
Rivera, S. L., Martin, J., & Landry, J. (2019). Acute and Chronic Hypertension: What Clinicians Need to Know for Diagnosis and Management. Critical Care Nursing Clinics, 31(1), 97-108.
Whelton, P. K., Appel, L. J., Sacco, R. L., Anderson, C. A., Antman, E. M., Campbell, N., … & Labarthe, D. R. (2012). Sodium, blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease: further evidence supporting the American Heart Association sodium reduction recommendations. Circulation, 126(24), 2880-2889.
Gandhi, S. K., Powers, J. C., Nomeir, A. M., Fowle, K., Kitzman, D. W., Rankin, K. M., & Little, W. C. (2001). The pathogenesis of acute pulmonary edema associated with hypertension. New England Journal of Medicine, 344(1), 17-22.
Gandhi, S. K., Powers, J. C., Nomeir, A. M., Fowle, K., Kitzman, D. W., Rankin, K. M., & Little, W. C. (2001). The pathogenesis of acute pulmonary edema associated with hypertension. New England Journal of Medicine, 344(1), 17-22.
Coffman, T. M. (2011). Under pressure: the search for the essential mechanisms of hypertension. Nature medicine, 17(11), 1402.