What You Need to Know About Renal Hypertension
Renal hypertension, also referred to as renovascular hypertension, is high blood pressure caused by the narrowing or the constriction of the arteries that bring blood to the kidneys. Renal hypertension is a kind of secondary hypertension.
The arteries to the kidneys become narrow, causing less blood to enter the kidneys. When this happens, the kidneys respond by releasing hormones that triggers the body to retain salt and water. As a result, the blood pressure increases, resulting in renal hypertension.
Various diseases and health problems can cause renal hypertension. Atherosclerosis is one of them. This is the inflammation of the arterial walls because of too much high cholesterol. High blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol levels increase one’s risk for atherosclerosis.
Renal hypertension usually does not have symptoms, but sometimes people experience headache. Other symptoms to watch out for, which usually appear when the renal hypertension is severe, include having blood in the urine, hearing a buzzing sound in the ears, feeling chest pains, nosebleeding, feeling tired, and experiencing changes in vision. When you observe these, go to your doctor immediately. As renal hypertension does not give too much symptoms, checking your blood pressure regularly will help you know if you have this kind of problem.
What are the signs that you have renal hypertension? If you have this condition, your blood pressure is persistently high. When your doctor places a stethoscope over your abdomen, a whooshing sound is heard. Renal hypertension also gives rise to kidney failure and heart failure.
Medicines can be administered to maintain blood pressure levels. However, this is not enough to treat renal hypertension. Whatever is causing the narrowing of the arteries to the kidneys should be addressed in order to treat renal hypertension.
There are cases when surgery is done to repair the damaged kidney artery. In other cases, a bypass of the renal arteries is necessary to allow the blood to flow normally into the kidneys again.
Leave a Reply