Comments on: Is High Blood Pressure Causing My Headache?

By: karen

karen — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 01:41:38 +0000

hmmm. am wondering about headaches because i feel for my 80 yr old mom who taught anatomy and physiology for 50 yrs and is trying to figure this out. now i realize she takes two medications.. one for high blood pressure and one anti-inflammatory to keep her joints limber.. seems to me these two can be feeding off each other..for example, the anti-inflammatory can be causing the high blood pressure …and thereby causing the headache..which she has had for over two months … she has taken this medication for over two years and takes about half the dosage perscribed because of her age … also she took a horrible drug called levaquin which last year was supposed to act as a antibiotic for a chest congestion – and ended up tearing her arm ligament! …but also it made her feel tingly all over for months afterwards…and perhaps this longstanding headache is a backlash from that as well….she eats a pretty healty diet though still eats meat = high in sodium … what is is hard is she will only consult a medical doctor no natural doctors who would prescribe food medicine like garlic to lower blood pressure naturally …she wonders ..how much garlic do i take to be sure my blood pressure will be lowered? also ginger is a known anti-inflammatory but again,,,how much to be effective? if there was a medical journal… that stated how much and if a real medical doctor would second the nomination then she might try natural substitues which might get at the root cause…oh maybe i can pay her md doctor a visit without her knowing and hope he is open minded…any suggestions would be appreciated!

By: Davis Were

Davis Were — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:06:10 +0000

My doctor recently diagnosed me with High blood pressure (160/86). He then put me on some medication after I had complained of serious headache, sometimes at the temples, at the back of the head. This has sometimes made me support my head from the chin to keep it raised. It however, goes away when I have a bed rest. Since the visit to the doctor, I have not had the headache disappear, though it is now mild. And because of late I have been not so close to the doctor, I visited a clinic where I was prescribed to some Inderal and Betapyne Tablets but my worry is; When I was looking at the side effects of Inderal, I got scared, really scared. How I wish I could have a permanent solution to this feeling. Please email me for advice.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:11:12 +0000

I have suffered from a mild headache every day for the past 6 years. The following would be my comments to your article:
* The medical community does not understand the cause of migraines and most Drs freely admit that
* Most Drs tend to believe that most, if not all, headaches are somehow the result of the migraine process, even though that process or cause is not understood.
* Treating a headache, just about any headache, seems to be a process of trial and error with a variety of migraine medications. Anything to keep a patient from over using pain meds.
* In my experience, treating all headaches as if they were migraines is a huge mistake that leaves thousands like me inadequately treated.

The conclusion I have drawn from my experience with all of this, is that Drs are not willing to even think about a root cause because it must be related to migraine and we don’t understand migraine. I challenged a headache specialist once, that if I was to get 2 hours of her time, she could have my root cause figured out. It is as obvious to me as if I came in with a broken arm and pointed to it. I needed to make it obvious to her. She said I would have to commission a $1M study to figure it out.

Another headache specialist, after seeing me for several sessions, and probably at the 2 hour mark of listening to me, suddenly sat up in his chair one day in total surprise: “you don’t have a migraine !” I was absolutely dumbfounded that he had not figured it out sooner. Then he went on to tell me that half of his patients have chronic daily headache. To me this is a failure of the entire industry, not just any one Dr.

You say it is possible headaches cause hypertension. Sure and a million other things ! I say the industry needs to quit relying on a poorly understood migraine phenomenon and try solving some simpler headaches that beg to be solved. When these are solved, it will shed important light on what goes on in a migraine attack. They have got it backwards in trying to get the migraine process to shed light on milder more constant headaches. There is not doubt that as my daily blood pressure rises each day, it causes my headache. I have read several of Silberstein’s articles and I would have this to say about his comment for extremely high pressures needed to damage the protective reflex of a blood vessel: Is it possible that some of us have damaged vasculature that has been damaged over a long period of time from a variety of causes in addition to over pressurization ?

My point with all of this is that there seems to be many headaches out there that can be solved relatively easy. Why not start there ? Then publish a simple case study for the benefit of the rest of us.

By: Diana

Diana — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:46:58 +0000

Hi:

I have been undiagnosed with “uncontrollable” high blood pressure. That said, my doc has recently increased my meds (Benicar 40, Bystolic 10, Tekturna 150 working towards 300) and I am experiencing regular headaches and my visual acuity seems diminished. Could this be side effects of the bp meds, or something that I should either wait out or deal with immediately? Every trip to my doc is over $100 even with insurance, so I’m trying to evaluate when to go.

By: James

James — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:30:42 +0000

Thanks for your comments. Hopefully the new research being done with find a cure for both headaches and hypertension!

By: Pacita

Pacita — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:46:51 +0000

I came from a long line of hypertensive family and, unfortunately, I did not escape that gene. When I forget to take my hypertensive medicine, I do get a headache, which I take is a signal that my blood pressure is up. This is the first time I heard that it is the other way around. Whoever is right, I wish that someone will someday find a permanent cure for hypertension.

By: Nathan from New Orleans

Nathan from New Orleans — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:28:20 +0000

This is a very well written article. One time a doctor said I had high blood pressure from too much salt though I don’t think I use that much.

Maybe I stay on this computer too long and it gives me headaches which causes my blood pressure to go up!

Nathan