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Why Do I Suddenly Have High Blood Pressure

Treatments For Sudden Rise In Blood Pressure

Why do I have high blood pressure?

A rise in already high blood pressure requires immediate medical attention. You can expect to have intravenous therapy and tests to determine what caused the spike in your pressure. Once your pressure is stabilized to a satisfactory level, then your doctor will discuss further treatment. Depending on your current health condition and any issues aside from high blood pressure, your treatment will vary.For example, if there is fluid in your lungs, you will be treated with prescribed diuretics to remove the fluid. If there is damage to your heart, you will be prescribed specific heart medication. Medications you may be taking may need to be adjusted or changed to another type, depending on your test results. Any kidney damage or tumors may require surgery.

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How Can I Control My Blood Pressure

You can often lower your blood pressure by changing your day-to-day habits and by taking medication if needed. Treatment, especially if you have other medical conditions such as diabetes, requires ongoing evaluation and discussions with your doctor.

Lifestyle changes you can make to help prevent and lower high blood pressure:

In addition to recommending lifestyle changes, your doctor will likely prescribe medication to lower your blood pressure to a safe level. Isolated systolic hypertension, the most common form of high blood pressure in older adults, is treated in the same way as regular high blood pressure but may require more than one type of blood pressure medication. You may try several kinds or combinations of medications before finding a plan that works best for you. Medication can control your blood pressure, but it can’t cure it. If your doctor starts you on medication for high blood pressure, you may need to take it long-term.

Can High Blood Pressure Affect Pregnancy

High blood pressure complicates about 10% of all pregnancies. There are several different types of high blood pressure during pregnancy and they range from mild to serious. The forms of high blood pressure during pregnancy include:

Chronic hypertension: High blood pressure which is present before pregnancy.

Gestational hypertension: High blood pressure in the latter part of pregnancy.

Preeclampsia: This is a dangerous condition that typically develops in the latter half of pregnancy and results in hypertension, protein in the urine and generalized swelling in the pregnant person. It can affect other organs in the body and cause seizures .

Chronic hypertension with superimposed preeclampsia: Pregnant people who have chronic hypertension are at increased risk for developing preeclampsia.

Your provider will check your blood pressure regularly during prenatal appointments, but if you have concerns about your blood pressure, be sure to talk with your provider.

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What Can I Expect If I Have This Condition

Since high blood pressure doesnt cause many symptoms at first, you probably wont feel any different with a high blood pressure diagnosis. But its important to follow your providers instructions to bring your blood pressure down so it doesnt cause serious illnesses later in life.

How long does high blood pressure last?

If you have primary high blood pressure, youll need to control it for the rest of your life.

If you have secondary high blood pressure, your blood pressure will most likely come down after you receive treatment for the medical problem that caused it. If a medication caused your high blood pressure, switching to a different medicine may lower your blood pressure.

What is the outlook for high blood pressure?

You can get seriously ill if you dont treat your high blood pressure. However, if you take the medicines your provider ordered, you can control your blood pressure. Exercising and eating healthy foods also helps lower your blood pressure.

Can High Blood Pressure Be Prevented Or Avoided

Why Do I Suddenly Have High Blood Pressure

If your high blood pressure is caused by lifestyle factors, you can take steps to reduce your risk:

  • Lose weight.
  • Reduce your alcohol consumption.
  • Learn relaxation methods.

If your high blood pressure is caused by disease or the medicine you take, talk to your doctor. He or she may be able to prescribe a different medicine. Additionally, treating any underlying disease can help reduce your high blood pressure.

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How Can I Lower My Blood Pressure In 5 Minutes

If your blood pressure is elevated and you want to see an immediate change, lie down and take deep breaths. This is how you lower your blood pressure within minutes, helping to slow your heart rate and decrease your blood pressure. When you feel stress, hormones are released that constrict your blood vessels.

Learning To Cope With Stress Can Help

Stress and hypertension have often been linked, but researchers are still looking into a direct relationship between the two. Still, the best advice to hypertensive patients: Try to relax.

When you are stressed, your body sends stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol into the bloodstream. These hormones create a temporary spike in blood pressure, causing your heart to beat faster and blood vessels to narrow. When the stressful situation is over, blood pressure goes back to its normal level.

Chronic stress, however, may cause your body to stay in this highly-charged state longer than natural.

While stress itself may or may not affect blood pressure, how you cope with stress does. For instance, overeating, smoking and drinking alcohol in response to stressful situations are direct causes of sustained high blood pressure. On the flip side, healthier coping mechanisms like exercising, practicing yoga and meditating can all help lower blood pressure.

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High Blood Pressure And Older Adults

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High blood pressure, or hypertension, is a major health problem that is common in older adults. Your bodys network of blood vessels, known as the vascular system, changes with age. Arteries get stiffer, causing blood pressure to go up. This can be true even for people who have heart-healthy habits and feel just fine. High blood pressure, sometimes called “the silent killer,” often does not cause signs of illness that you can see or feel. Though it affects nearly half of all adults, many may not even be aware they have it.

If high blood pressure isn’t controlled with lifestyle changes and medication, it can lead to serious health problems, including cardiovascular disease such as heart disease and stroke, vascular dementia, eye problems, and kidney disease. The good news is that blood pressure can be controlled in most people.

This Is Why You Have High Blood Pressureand How To Lower It

Why Do I Have High Blood Pressure? || HealthspanMD

Blood pressure is probably one of those health characteristics youve heard about all your life, but havent paid much attention to your doctors readings before reaching the age range where it could become a concern. If this is the case, youre not alone.

If youre also wondering what blood pressure even is, youre also not alone there, either. Basically, the body possesses an intricate framework of blood vessels that is composed of two specific types: arteries and veins, says Suneet Singh, MD, an emergency room physician and medical director at CareHive in Austin, Texas. Blood that goes out of the heart is found within arteries while blood that returns is found within veins. Blood pressure is the measurement of the pressure of blood against the walls of blood vessels. According to the American Heart Association, normal blood pressure is less than 120/80.

In general, when we discuss blood pressure, we are referring specifically to the pressure found within arteries because this is what correlates most with acute and chronic diseases, Dr. Singh explains. When people demonstrate a consistent pattern of pressures over this number, they are diagnosed with high blood pressure, also called hypertension.

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Regular Blood Pressure Checks For Over Over 40’s

The only way to find out whether you have high blood pressure is to have your blood pressure checked regularly. Ask your GP when you are next due for yours to be checked.

Blood pressure checks are usually available on request at most GP surgeries and health clinics. Some surgeries have home monitoring devices available, which you may be able to use at the time of blood pressure medication start up or change. Many also have a policy of arranging regular checks for you.

Adults who are over 40 and have not been diagnosed with high blood pressure should have their blood pressure checked at least once every five years. However, your blood pressure should ideally be checked more frequently, particularly if you have any contributory risk factors.

High Blood Pressure After Eating

Another potential cause of sudden blood pressure might be a reaction to food. Typically it is best practice to measure your blood pressure before eating, because if you measure it after you eat you may find that its outside of your normal range.

Initial studies on this metric found that younger people had no variation before or after eating while older adults would generally have a decline in blood pressure. Future studies revealed that this difference between age ranges was not due to medication.

The research went on to discover that the variability of blood pressure change after eating was directly correlated with the degree of plaque buildup in the arteries. Their data even suggests that a significant drop or increase in blood pressure after eating can be a predictor of plaque build-up, called atherosclerosis.

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What Is Considered High Blood Pressure

The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology have recommended guidelines to define normal and high blood pressure .

Guidelines to define normal and high blood pressure stages chart

> 139 > 89

Based on these new 2017 guidelines defining high blood pressure, as many as half of all Americans will have this disease . Uncontrolled high blood pressure is responsible for many cases of death and disability resulting from a heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure.

According to research studies, the risk of dying of a heart attack is directly linked to high blood pressure, particularly systolic hypertension. The higher your blood pressure, the higher the risk. Maintaining lifelong control of hypertension decreases the future risk of complications such as heart attack and stroke.

  • Peripheral arterial disease causing leg pain with walking
  • Outpouchings of the aorta, called aneurysms
  • About 1% of people with high blood pressure do not seek medical care until the high blood pressure is very severe, a condition known as malignant hypertension or a hypertensive emergency.

  • In malignant hypertension, the diastolic blood pressure often exceeds 120 mm Hg.
  • Malignant hypertension may be associated with headache, lightheadedness, nausea, vomiting, and stroke like symptoms
  • Malignant hypertension requires emergency intervention and lowering of blood pressure to prevent brain hemorrhage or stroke.
  • Secondary High Blood Pressure

    Pin on High Blood Pressure Remedies

    Some cases of high blood pressure are the result of underlying factors or cause and this is known as secondary high blood pressure.

    Underlying factors include:

    • kidney conditions, such as a kidney infection, or kidney disease
    • narrowing of the arteries
    • hormonal conditions, such as Cushing’s syndrome
    • conditions that affect the bodys tissue, such as lupus
    • medication, such as the oral contraceptive pill, or the type of painkillers that are known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs , such as ibuprofen
    • recreational drugs, such as cocaine, amphetamines and crystal meth

    Occasionally, a rise in blood pressure can result from taking herbal remedies, such as herbal supplements.

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    How Common Is High Blood Pressure

    High blood pressure is a common condition, it is estimated that 18% of adult men and 13% of adult women have high blood pressure but are not getting treatment for it.

    In 90-95% of cases, there is no single identifiable reason for a rise in blood pressure. But all available evidence shows that lifestyle plays a significant role in regulating your blood pressure.

    Risk factors for high blood pressure include:

    • age
    • poor diet
    • being overweight
    • excessive alcohol consumption.

    Also, for reasons not fully understood, people of Afro-Caribbean and South Asian origin are more likely to develop high blood pressure than other ethnic groups.

    Causes And Risk Factors

    You may be at an increased risk for high blood pressure if you smoke, areoverweight, eat a diet thats low on produce and fiber and/or high in fatand salt, drink alcohol to excess, live with chronic stress or dont getmuch physical activity. Some causes of hypertension cannot becontrolledincluding your genes and your race . Aging also plays a role. Even if you do not have hypertensionby age 55 to 65, your lifetime risk for developing it is a whopping 90percent.

    But doctors no longer consider hypertension inevitable or untreatable withage, saysSamuel Durso, M.D.,director of the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at JohnsHopkins.

    In one Johns Hopkins study of 975 older women and men with hypertension,healthy lifestyle steps helped 40 percent stop taking blood pressuremedications. Other research has shown that lifestyle changes can lower therisk for hypertension in African-Americans and others at an increasedgenetic risk.

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    What Makes Blood Pressure Suddenly Increase

    Asked by sam

    What Makes Blood Pressure Suddenly Increase?

    During a recent visit to the doctor my blood pressure was suddenly very high, so high that I had to go to the emergency and be monitored for several hours. I was put on metaprolol, but my blood pressure still spikes throughout the day. What would make my blood pressure go up like that? At what point is it so high that I should go to the ER again?

    Common Causes Of High Blood Pressure Spikes

    Why do I have high blood pressure? MD Explains. (Video 1 of 2)

    Some people with high blood pressure will experience sharp rises in their blood pressure. These spikes, which typically last only a short period of time, are also known as sudden high blood pressure. These are some possible causes:

    • Caffeine
    • Certain medications or combinations of medications
    • Chronic kidney disease

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    Causes Of Sudden High Blood Pressure

    According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of out every three American adults suffers from diagnosed high blood pressure with only one half keeping their pressure under control. Sudden high blood pressure usually occurs to a small percentage of people with high blood pressure. This can include young adults, including a high number of African-American men, and those experiencing:

    • Collagen vascular disorders
    • Pregnancy-induced high blood pressure

    Sudden high blood pressure can also be brought on by daily activities and practices.

    • Medication use such as over-the-counter pain relievers, a combination of various medications, and abuse of cocaine and marijuana can spike blood pressure levels.
    • Smoking can cause a sudden increase in blood pressure as the chemicals, including nicotine, damage the linings of our blood vessels.
    • Diet habits are critical to maintaining normal blood pressure levels as the bad fat and sodium found in many foods increase the blood solute content. It also can build up and block the blood vessels, leading to major heart trouble such as a stroke.
    • Stress is part of our everyday life and becoming anxious about your worries can increase risk for spikes in blood pressure twofold.
    • Medical conditions like kidney disease, spinal injuries, adrenal gland tumors, thyroid issues, and scleroderma can raise blood pressure rapidly.

    What Medications Treat High Blood Pressure

    • Of appropriate, chlorthalidone is the preferred diuretic.

    Beta-Blockers

    • Beta-blockers reduce heart rate and decrease the force of heart contraction by blocking the action of adrenaline receptors. Beta blockers are widely prescribed and effective but can cause increased fatigue and decreased exercise tolerance because they prevent an increased heart rate as a normal response to physical activity.
    • They are also prescribed for people who have associated heart disease, angina, or history of a heart attack.
    • Examples of beta blockers include, carvedilol , metoprolol , atenolol

    Calcium Channel Blockers

    Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors

    • ACE inhibitors stop the production in the body of a chemical called angiotensin II, which causes blood vessels to contract. Narrower blood vessels are associated with increased blood pressure. Relaxing artery walls leads to lower blood pressure.

    Blockers of Central Sympathetic System

    Direct Vasodilators

    Take your high blood pressure medicine as prescribed and only discontinue them on the advice of your doctor or other healthcare professional.

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    You Shouldn’t Ignore White Coat Hypertension

    Some people experience white coat hypertension, when blood pressure is elevated in the doctor’s office but not in other settings. These patients need to monitor their blood pressure at home or wear an ambulatory blood pressure monitor that takes your blood pressure every 30 minutes for 24 hours.

    While white coat hypertension was formerly considered simple nervousness, recent research suggests otherwise.

    A study published in the journal Hypertension found that people with white coat hypertension are at a significantly greater risk for developing sustained high blood pressure than people who have normal blood pressure. One possible explanation is that people with white coat hypertension have a harder time managing stress and anxiety.

    Symptoms Of Sudden High Blood Pressure

    I Have High Blood Pressure: What Do I Need to Know ...

    Unlike traditional high blood pressure, where there are no visual symptoms until major damage has occurred, sudden high blood pressure alerts you immediately.

    • Weakness or numbness in arms, legs, face
    • Mentality changes such as anxiety, fatigue, confusion, restlessness

    In extreme cases of sudden high blood pressure, there may be bleeding from damaged blood vessels, blindness from ruptured retina nerves or vessels, and possibly seizures.

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