Diagnosis of high blood pressure

When you visit a doctor for a check-up and after measuring your blood pressure if he finds out that it is slightly high, he will probably not diagnose this as high blood pressure. The reason is that there are many causes that raise the blood pressure of an individual temporarily like the “White coat hypertension”. There are certain other factors that should be investigated before you are confirmed to have high blood pressure.

Measuring the blood pressure

The doctor or his assistant generally measures the blood pressure of a patient with the help of a tool that contains an arm cuff which is tied around the upper arm of the patient and then an air pump that is attached to it is used to measure the pressure. In order to get a correct reading the patient should follow some instructions like they should relax at least for 5 mins before the pressure is checked and he should not consume caffeine or smoke from at least 30 mins prior to the checking. Generally they take minimum two readings to make sure that it is perfect.

Checking the previous history of high blood pressure

Before doing the diagnosis of high blood pressure, the doctor will definitely like to go through your family history and ask you many questions regarding this which has to be answered correctly. The first thing that they will ask you whether you have ever been told by any other doctor that you have high blood pressure or not. If you answer this in yes then they will like to know what medication was used to cure it.

 The past medical history apart from the high blood pressure is also important as some of the drugs create high blood pressure as a side effect. The other important information that they will ask about are the symptoms which may include giddiness, perspiration, palpitation and headache. If all these are positive then they will diagnose you with high blood pressure.

Other tests for diagnosis of high blood pressure

There are several other tests that can cause the high blood pressure. They can look into your eyes with an ophthalmoscope to know if the small blood vessels in the eyes show any sort of damage or not. Blood tests will be performed to check if at all there is any sign of kidney dysfunctions or not.

Then an ECG is performed to know if the heart is functioning properly or not as this might be a reason of high blood pressure. A person who has suffered from a heart attack is always at a risk of high blood pressure.

The diagnosis of high blood pressure should be done at the early stage as this can cause many problems if not treated properly.