High Blood Pressure Headache

Most people do suffer with headaches from time to time, but this does not necessarily mean they have high blood pressure headache.  In a small number of people high blood pressure headache can occur, but studies and recordings indicate that this is probably rare.

People who get a headache sometimes assume that they are suffering from high blood pressure headache.  However both headache and high blood pressure are very common and it is true that the two can occur together.    

When a group of people were tested and wore an ambulatory blood pressure monitor for a period of twenty four hours, they were asked to record when or if they experienced headaches and when they occurred.  Approximately thirty per cent of the group reported a headache which lasted for about two or three hours.  In most cases the headaches were not associated with the highest readings of blood pressure.  Also there was no particular tendency for the blood pressure to go up or down just before the headache started.  They, were therefore, not considered to have a ‘high blood pressure headache’.  The findings were that most of the headaches in people with high blood pressure do not occur because of high blood pressure.

If you have hypertension (high blood pressure) and are getting headaches it does not mean that you are experiencing a high blood pressure headache.

Other studies show that that high blood pressure does cause headaches and taking blood pressure lowering drugs as a treatment for high blood pressure does lower the risk of high blood pressure headache.  However it is possible that taking an aspirin a day could do the trick, without taking any other drugs.

High blood pressure headaches are possible but in general high blood pressure is not the cause of recurring headaches.  Studies show that headaches have been precipitated by blood pressure of 200 over 110 or higher.  Your doctor should be able to determine whether an elevated blood pressure is responsible for your headache.

Sometimes a headache creates throbbing, but on other occasions your head may feel that it is going to burst as a result of the pressure you feel.  In the latter case it you may be suffering from high blood pressure headache.