High blood pressure symptoms
How does high blood pressure make you feel?
People are often surprised to learn that there are no common high blood pressure symptoms - not at the pressures usually encountered. This is why it also goes by the sinister name of the 'Silent Killer'.
How many times have you come across the following phrase, in some form or another? "I'm not feeling so good today, my blood pressure's playing up." It's most likely to be the other way around - whatever is making them feel under the weather (stress, pain, illness), has caused the rise in blood pressure.
With extremely high blood pressure however symptoms such as headache, nosebleeds, facial flushing or visual disturbance can occur. This is an emergency.
Signs of high blood pressure
Signs, in medical parlance, are different from symptoms. They are observed or discovered by examination. Detectable signs caused by high blood pressure are usually manifestations of damage caused by the condition. Since high blood pressure symptoms are extremely rare often the condition may have existed long enough to begin to cause some damage to show up.
Heart specialists can often detect certain sounds made by an enlarged heart using a stethoscope. Examining the eye with an ophthalmoscope, the doctor may observe changes in the blood vessels at the back of the retina. (These are the only blood vessels in the body that can be seen directly and clearly from the outside.)
Investigations
All you need to know (for now) about investigations is that your doctor will do some basic tests to make sure you do not have an underlying disorder affecting your blood pressure and to ensure no significant complications have set in.
The tests will ensure that your kidney function and other basics are in order. Such tests are also done before starting drug treatment.
Your heart health will also be checked with an electrical tracing (EKG or ECG) and a chest X-ray.
As long as basic screening shows no problems that should be all.
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