What Is Severe Hypertension?

Hypertension is another word for high blood pressure. Severe hypertension is thus very high blood pressure. Symptoms of severe hypertension include visual disturbances, nausea, vomiting and headaches, particularly pulsating headaches behind your eyes that happen early in the morning. Severe hypertension puts you at greater risk of developing other diseases. Fortunately, there are changes you can make in your lifestyle to prevent developing severe hypertension.

Identification

• Blood pressure is the force of blood that pushes against your artery walls as it flows through them. Arteries are blood vessels responsible for carrying blood from your heart to your body's tissues. Two numbers are used to measure blood pressure. These numbers are separated by a slash when written, for example, 120/90. Systolic blood pressure is the first number. It measures the highest blood pressure when your heart squeezes out blood. The second number measures diastolic blood pressure. This indicates the pressure of your heart as it relaxes in between beats. Normal blood pressure is 120/80 or lower. High blood pressure is defined as 140/90 or higher. Severe hypertension is 160/100 or higher.

Cause

• Many people who already are diagnosed with high blood pressure do not take the medicines they are prescribed. This causes the problem to escalate into severe hypertension. Besides not taking prescribed medications, the actual cause of severe hypertension is unknown in most people.

Significance

• Severe hypertension often leads to hypertensive crisis. This is also called malignant high blood pressure or hypertensive emergency. It is a medical emergency and requires immediate treatment. Left untreated, severe hypertension can damage your heart, brain, kidneys or eyes. At worst, severe hypertension is also known to cause high medical complication rates and even death.

Prevention/Solution

• If you know you have high blood pressure, you should make changes in your diet and lifestyle to prevent developing severe hypertension. Stop smoking cigarettes. Exercise regularly. Eat a low-fat diet, including many vegetables and fruits. Consume less sodium, caffeine and alcohol. Learn proper breathing and other stress management techniques and practice them often.

Warning

• There are certain risk factors that increase your likelihood of developing severe hypertension. Men suffer from severe hypertension more than women. Other risk factors include having a family history of severe hypertension, being over age 60, obesity, salt sensitivity, an inactive lifestyle and heavy alcohol consumption. Call a doctor immediately if you have high blood pressure and it is normally well controlled, but suddenly increases significantly above the normal range more than once. You should also call your doctor right away if your blood pressure is 180/110 or higher at any time.