Essential hypertension is also known as primary hypertension. This type of hypertension is said to be essential or primary hypertension because it is basically, its own primary cause. This is to say the medical community can't find any underlying cause for it. The patient simply has hypertension and that is the bottom line!
How To Control It
Essential hypertension will usually need to be watched throughout the patient's lifetime. There are cases where changes in habits, such as quitting smoking or cutting down on alcohol consumption will lower the patient's blood pressure reading without having to be administered medications. However, most times blood pressure lowering medications will need to be taken. This is not a devastating prognosis as it is common for people with properly treated hypertension to live full and normal lives.
The Overall View
One school of thought is primary hypertension actually does have an underlying cause but the medical profession has yet to discover what it could be. The reason this hypothesis is viable is that some patients will respond to the same treatment that other patients may not benefit from at all. This leads to the conclusion patient-A may, indeed have a truly primary hypertension while patient-B still has an undiscovered underlying problem.
The medical profession knows how to deal with essential hypertension and in each individual case a doctor will come up with the best plan to treat the patient. This is true even though a period of trial and error will often be required.
Once prescribed, blood pressure medication must be taken every day. Deciding to skip a day is not allowed. It is also against the rules to cut your dosage or, perhaps because you don't feel good, take an extra pill.
Another fact about hypertension medication is that it is meant to be taken at the same time of the day each time it is taken. As we have already seen, skipping dosages renders blood pressure medication less effective and now we see, this medication needs to be administered at even intervals. Not following these instructions on dosage and when exactly to take the medication may put the patient at risk of not being able to control the hypertension. Of course, there are many unwanted complications associated with uncontrolled high blood pressure.
Tell Your Doctor
Often times any type of medication will need to be altered. This is part of the normal procedure followed for coming to the conclusion of what is the right treatment for any particular individual. So, whenever a patient is not feeling well in the early stages of a treatment for high blood pressure he/she should let the doctor know. The patient should do so because the dosage or the medication itself may need to be changed.
Essential hypertension is quite common today. It is more often seen in adolescents than it is adults. This is simply because there are far more underlying reasons for an older person to have hypertension than a younger one. So of course, when there are other reasons the hypertension is present it would not be primary or essential hypertension.
The diagnosis of essential hypertension has not been made until relatively recently. Many years ago high blood pressure was overlooked and there were several years since those dark ages of medicine before a conclusion was made that there was such a thing as essential hypertension. Now, since nobody has come up with a concrete reason why it exists, some think essential hypertension is a genetic disease. Of course, that is not important, the only thing that is important is getting under control.
You have learned a lot about Essential Hypertension, now learn the latest details to managing and overcoming it at: Symptoms of Hypertension. Also, discover if anxiety is affecting your blood pressure at Stop Anxiety Panic.
Posted under blood pressure
This post was written by Jason Falson on December 24, 2009
