Having high blood pressure is a complex condition that can sometimes result to dizziness, nausea and other forms of physical pain. However, if you are consistently experiencing high blood pressure and headache, this is a condition that should not be easily dismissed.

High blood pressure plus headaches can be a symptom of a whole new health problem. You should have yourself checked up with a doctor, since it can lead to a diagnosis of having Pheochromocytoma.

What is Pheochromocytoma?

This is a rare tumor that develops in your adrenal gland’s core. Each of your kidneys have one adrenal gland above them. Your adrenal glands are responsible for producing hormones, which give commands to almost every tissue and organ in your body.

Having pheochromocytoma, can make your adrenal glands produce too much of specific hormones, that raises your heart rate and blood pressure. A condition like this can be life-threatening if untreated or unrecognized.

This tumor can develop at any age, but it most commonly occurs in people aged 30-60. In most cases, a pheochromocytoma is benign or noncancerous. It can be given treatment and your blood pressure can return to normal. However, cancerous types of this condition can affect your brain, bone or lungs.

Knowing The Signs

A primary sign of pheochromocytoma is high blood pressure. It can result from extreme secretion of chemical compounds like catecholamines. These compounds don’t usually come with signs or symptoms. However, the hormones noradrenaline (norepinephrine) and adrenaline (epinephrine) are also catecholamines.

Too much secretion of these hormones can lead to having wild blood pressure fluctuations or persistent hypertension. The effect depends on whether they are continuously released or in short bursts.

A lot of people have incidents of signs and symptoms that are related to intermittent release of such hormones. In addition to high blood pressure, you may experience having rapid heart rate, forceful heartbeat, profound sweating, chest pains, upper abdominal pain, severe sudden headaches that last for a brief period of time, hand tremors, feelings of anxiety, feelings of extreme fright, and pale skin.

You can also have a hypertensive crisis, which may be brought by anxiety or emotional distress, by surgical anesthesia, or by activities that can press on the tumor, like changes in body position, exercise, lifting, and defecation. An episode of hypertension usually lasts 15-60 minutes for several times a week. Your blood pressure may be elevated or normal in between symptoms.

Causes

The cause of tumor development is unclear. The condition however, is related to other health disorders and conditions that may run in your family like Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Type II (MEN II), Von Hippel-Lindau Disease, and Neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1).

Complications

If you already have hypertension caused by a pheochromocytoma, too much force on your artery walls can bring serious damage to a lot of your vital organs. There can be greater damage, the longer you have your hypertension, and the longer you don’t treat it.

Untreated hypertension may lead to visual impairment, heart failure, heart attack, kidney failure, stroke, dementia, cognitive decline, and premature death. Basically it can affect your brain, heart, eyes, and kidneys. Having hypertension can also diminish your memory and learning skills as you age.

You can also experience hypertensive crisis, which can go as high as 250/150 mmHg. This can occur with abrupt discharge of a big volume of adrenaline hormones coming from the tumor. This can be highly fatal leading to conditions like stroke or heart arrhythmia. If you are exposed in a long-term basis to these hormones, you can develop heart muscle damage that can lead to congestive heart failure. Having too much adrenaline hormones also increases your risk of having diabetes.

Blood tests, urine tests, and scans can be done to detect on whether you have a pheochromocytoma or not. If you have this, a decrease in salt intake should be done. Angiotensin receptor blockers, alpha blockers, beta blockers and surgery are the common intervention used for treating this condition.