High blood pressure treatment

While there is no one cure for high blood pressure, the condition can be controlled through a combination of medications and lifestyle changes. Whether you are trying to prevent developing high blood pressure or trying to manage the condition, your healthcare provider or specialist will be able to determine the best course of action for you.

Once you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, it’s important to carefully monitor and manage the condition so it doesn’t progress further.

Preventing high blood pressure

The course of action for preventing high blood pressure³⁷ is making healthy lifestyle choices. By living a healthy lifestyle, you can help keep your blood pressure in a range that is healthy for you, as well as lower your risk for heart disease and stroke.

Maintaining a heart-healthy lifestyle includes:

• Eating a healthy diet: Adopting a diet with less sodium and plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables can help keep your blood pressure in a healthy range. The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH)³⁸ diet may help you reduce your risk of developing high blood pressure.

• Maintaining a healthy weight: Being overweight or obese increases your risk for high blood pressure. Healthcare providers often determine whether your weight is in a healthy range by calculating your body mass index (BMI)³⁹. They may also use waist and hip measurements to measure excess body fat. You can calculate your BMI online⁴⁰ if you know your height and weight.

• Getting enough physical activity: Physical activity⁴¹ can help you maintain a healthy weight and lower your blood pressure. Aerobic exercise—which increases your heart rate and causes you to intake more oxygen than normal—is generally recommended for its cardiovascular benefits.

• Not smoking: Cigarette smoking⁴² raises your blood pressure and puts you at higher risk for heart attack and stroke. If you don’t smoke, don’t start. If you do smoke, quitting now will lower your risk for heart disease. Your healthcare provider, as well as online resources⁴³, can suggest ways to help you quit smoking.

• Manage stress: Healthy stress management techniques like meditation and exercise can lower your blood pressure⁴⁴ while improving your emotional and physical health.

• Limiting alcohol consumption: Drinking too much alcohol can raise your blood pressure. According to the CDC⁴⁵, men should have no more than 2 drinks per day, and women no more than 1.

Pulmonary hypertension treatment

Pulmonary hypertension can be less responsive to lifestyle changes than other forms of high blood pressure. Your doctor may instead choose to pursue a more aggressive course of medication or surgery.

Some treatments for pulmonary hypertension⁴⁶ include:

• Medications, including anticoagulants (which help prevent the formation of blood clots within the small pulmonary arteries), diuretics (which help eliminate excess water from the body, reducing the amount of stress on your heart), and vasodilators (which dilate, or open, narrowed blood vessels).
• Oxygen therapy: Your healthcare provider may suggest that you sometimes breathe pure oxygen to help treat pulmonary hypertension, especially if you live at a high altitude or have sleep apnea. Some people with pulmonary hypertension eventually require continuous oxygen therapy.
• Atrial septostomy: If medications don’t control your pulmonary hypertension, an open-heart surgery such as atrial septostomy⁴⁷ might be an option. In this procedure, a surgeon creates an opening between the upper left and right chambers of the heart (atria) to relieve pressure on the right side of the heart.

• Transplantation: In some cases, a lung or heart-lung transplant might be an option—especially for younger people who have idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension.

High blood pressure medications

Your provider may prescribe the following medications for high blood pressure