Symptoms - Hypertension

As many as one in three adults has high blood pressure, but because there are no symptoms, nearly many of these people don't know they have it. You can have it for many years without knowing anything about it. Uncontrolled high blood pressure can lead to stroke, heart attack, heart failure or kidney failure. The only way to tell if you have high blood pressure is to have your blood pressure checked.

If you have high blood pressure, your doctor will normally check your blood pressure over a period of a few weeks. You will receive advice about lifestyle changes that help with improving your blood pressure (for example, a healthy diet, reducing the amount of salt you add to your food, increasing exercise and reducing the amount of alcohol that you drink).

If these measures are not sufficient, your doctor would normally recommend tablets: there are many available and your doctor will discuss this with you. A combination of tablets is often recommended as this is more effective and allows smaller doses of each tablet to be given (and so fewer side effects).

Usually, there is no specific cause for high blood pressure; occasionally your doctor might recommend some tests to see if there are any causes that might need specific treatment.