Hypertension

What Is Hypertension? Though you can’t see high blood pressure, your body will definitely notice the change.

You can’t see your blood pressure or feel it, so you may wonder why this simple reading is so important. The answer is that measuring your blood pressure gives your doctor a peek into the workings of your circulatory system. A high number means that your heart is working overtime to pump blood through your body. This extra work can result in a weaker heart muscle and potential organ damage down the road. Your arteries also suffer when your blood pressure is high. The relentless pounding of the blood against the arterial walls causes them to become hard and narrow, potentially setting you up for stroke, kidney failure, and cardiovascular disease.

Physicians classify the different kinds of hypertension based on their causes and characteristics. Following are some of the most common types.

Essential hypertension

About 90 percent–95 percent of people with high blood pressure have what’s called essential hypertension or primary hypertension. This means the condition has no identifiable source.

Isolated systolic hypertension

As people age, their arteries tend to lose elasticity and become less able to accommodate blood surges. The damage created in the vessel lining when blood flows through the arteries at high pressure can accelerate plaque buildup. Eventually, plaque deposits lead to atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) This is the most common form of high blood pressure in the elderly.

Medications for Treating Hypertension

For those with diabetes or kidney disease, medications may be necessary at pressures as low as 130/80. And today, blood pressure can be controlled with lower doses of medications, meaning there is less chance of side effects.

Doctors can choose from an abundant selection of antihypertensive medications, including many preparations that combine one or more drugs. Many newer antihypertensive drugs have a slightly different chemical structure from older drugs but produce nearly identical effects in the body. Others act in entirely different ways. Doctors can tailor treatment to the individual patient and can often prescribe a drug that controls blood pressure, produces few or no side effects, and, hopefully, protects against complications. In addition, it’s often possible to use a single medication to treat both the hypertension and accompanying medical problems, like congestive heart failure.

It’s also important to understand that no single drug is “superior” to the others. Blood pressure control is ultimately a numbers game: The value of any antihypertensive drug is judged on an individual basis, depending on how significantly the medication reduces blood pressure for the person who takes it.

Experts recommend starting any antihypertensive drug at the lowest possible dose and gradually increasing it until blood pressure sinks to a normal level. If the drug causes troublesome side effects, it should be replaced with a different medication.