Cause and successes

The success of endurance sports with regard to high blood pressure can be expected after 10-12 weeks. The more pronounced the high blood pressure was before, the better the success. Furthermore, the effect is highest at the beginning.

Over the years the blood pressure still drops slightly. The effect of lowering blood pressure during sport is achieved by a lower release of stress hormones. These hormones are also called catecholamines.

They include adrenaline and noradrenaline. These hormones are regulated by our autonomous nervous system, in this case the sympathetic nervous system. Lowering these stress hormones now causes the vessels to dilate.

The inner winds of the vessels (endothelium) have receptors. If fewer stress hormones dock to these receptors, the vessels dilate. This vasodilatation is achieved by an increase in nitric oxide and causes the actual lowering of blood pressure.

Headaches

The headaches associated with high blood pressure occur especially in the morning hours. They are usually located at the back of the head. The headaches can cause sleep disturbances.

The cause of the pain in high blood pressure is the increased pressure in the blood vessels, which also leads to an increase in pressure in the surrounding area and thus presses on the part of the head that supplies nerves, the meninges. Headaches can be the beginning or accompanying symptom of a hypertensive crisis. A hypertensive crisis is a massive increase in blood pressure that becomes symptomatic.

Patients often describe very severe headaches and usually have other symptoms as well. It has now been found that mild moderate hypertension does not trigger headaches. However, it is still being researched whether this does not increase the probability of headaches occurring.

Other symptoms

Symptoms of high blood pressure can be very different. However, you should also watch your body carefully during sports to ensure that sports do not have a counterproductive effect and that you do not overlook blood pressure spikes. Poorly adjusted blood pressure can be very inconspicuous and go unnoticed at first.

It is therefore important to recognize possible symptoms in time, because long-term damage can be caused by high blood pressure. Permanently high blood pressure can lead to damage to the heart, vessels, eyes, kidneys and brain. At the beginning, however, no symptoms may be present and the disease remains undetected for years.

It is therefore worthwhile to have regular body checks performed by your family doctor. If high blood pressure becomes symptomatic, it can manifest itself in the early stages as follows: Dizziness, headaches especially in the morning, ringing in the ears, tiredness, sleep disturbances, nosebleeds, a red head, reddened veins, nervousness, nausea. Sleep disorders often result from the headaches that wake the person up.

As a rule, the blood pressure should even drop during the night. People who do not have their blood pressure dropping as normal at night are also called non-dippers. In the subsequent stages, in which organ damage has already occurred, the following symptoms can be observed: difficulty breathing, impaired vision, chest pain, tightness of chest.

Massive vascular damage can also lead to chest pain, which, however, already occurs as a result of a heart attack. In addition, severe vascular damage can also trigger strokes in the brain. In the case of severe kidney damage, due to chronic high blood pressure, water retention in the eyelid and in the feet and lower legs can also occur.

In some people, the symptoms of high blood pressure worsen during the winter months. When the systolic blood pressure is very high, above 230 mmHg, and becomes symptomatic, a so-called hypertensive emergency occurs. This occurs when chronic organ damage is present in addition to high blood pressure peaks.

Here, too, extreme chest pain due to heart attack or aortic dissection (bleeding between the vascular walls of the aorta due to severe vascular damage), paralysis, disturbances of consciousness and dizziness due to strokes or cerebral haemorrhages, shortness of breath due to pulmonary oedema (water retention in the lungs), visual disturbances due to bleeding into the retina of the eye can occur. In a hypertensive emergency, immediate action must be taken. An emergency doctor should be called immediately.

Depending on the symptoms, different medications are used. Possible drugs are nitroglycerin, urapidil, calcium antagonists or clonidine. It can also lead to very high blood pressure above 230 mmHg without symptoms. This is called a hypertensive crisis. Here too, one should try to lower the blood pressure, but the danger here is not as acute as in a hypertensive emergency.