Does High Blood Pressure Cause Bad Headaches?
Approximately 25 percent of adults in the United States suffer from high blood pressure, also called hypertension. A century ago, this was commonly associated by the medical profession with headaches, a view that widely persists among the public today. More recently, a number of studies have begun to chip away at this time-honored idea, and more recently even to stand it on its head. High blood pressure can cause many unpleasant symptoms, including but not limited to pain in many bodily areas, vision problems, constipation, cough, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, pain and swelling in the legs and feet, heart palpitations, nausea, numbness in the extremities, shortness of breath and difficulty with urination. Headache is also listed on the Mayo Clinic website as a possible symptom of hypertension, yet headache is a very common condition and can exist in hypertensive patients as a result of unrelated medical problems or stress.
