Symptoms and Diagnosis of High Blood Pressure
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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.
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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