High Blood Pressure Medicine And Sex Drive

There is definitely a relationship between high blood pressure medication and one’s sex drive, for both men and women. In men high blood pressure medication can cause erectile problems because they slow down the flow of blood to the penis, thereby making it much more difficult for the man to get an erection when sexually aroused. It's known that diuretics (or water pills, like hydrochlorothiazide) and beta-blockers (like Atenolol) can also cause erection problems. These are also the first drugs that a doctor is likely to prescribe if you are not able to lower your high blood pressure through diet and exercise. There are also medications known as calcium channel blockers, such as Diltiazem, Verapamil, or Amlodipine. As a group, they rarely cause erectile dysfunction. But erection problems may be less common with some individual drugs within that group than with others.

Women taking these medications may experience pain during intercourse due to a lack of lubrication which is a side effect of these drugs. Women actually experience a bigger affect to their sex drive when taking high blood pressure medication than men do, namely a loss of natural lubrication. Women also may experience a recurring decrease in sexual desire, persistent or recurring decrease in sexual arousal, or a difficulty or even complete inability to achieve an orgasm.

High blood pressure: how it all starts?

Blood vessels to carry blood around the body. When the heart beats, it pushes blood through the arteries. When a person is healthy arteries, blood flows through blood vessels, only a bit of resistance. But a person whose blood vessels are narrow, to prevent the arterial blood streaming through them. The heart has to work harder to make blood, where it should go, and in this way, high blood pressure occurs. High blood pressure a huge burden on your heart and can damage arteries. This increases the risk for cardiac problems and renal failure. Hypertension is often called the "silent killer" because many men and women are not even aware they have it. This is because the majority of the people who have high blood pressure have no symptoms.

Several factors increase the risk of high blood pressure. Some you can control, and some can be. The perpetrators can not be a control are: age, the risk of hypertension increases with age, heredity. If you have close relatives who have high blood pressure, use of tobacco products, you are at higher risk, the fat that regular physical activity, consumption of too much salt. Doctors recommend that all the grownups 18 years and older is considered hypertension. If you have high blood pressure, the following are some tips to help you reduce it to stop smoking. Nicotine makes blood vessels narrower and heart beat faster, which increases blood pressure. To limit sodium and alcohol intake, use a balanced diet rich in vitamins and low in fat, Exercise regularly, and half an hour, or 5 days a week.

What Causes High Blood Pressure?

The causes of high blood pressure vary. Causes may include narrowing of the arteries, a greater than normal volume of blood, or the heart beating faster or more forcefully than it should. Any of these conditions will cause increased pressure against the artery walls. High blood pressure might also be caused by another medical problem. Most of the time, the cause is not known. Although high blood pressure usually cannot be cured, in most cases it can be prevented and controlled.

In 90 to 95 percent of people with high blood pressure, doctors do not know what causes it. High blood pressure with an unknown cause is called essential, or primary, hypertension.

Sometimes, an underlying disease or other condition is found to be the cause of the high blood pressure. This type, called secondary hypertension, only occurs in 5 to 10 percent of people with hypertension.

Causes of secondary hypertension include:

* Renal Pertaining to kidneys (kidney) disorders, such as:

o Renal vascular disease Also called renovascular disease; includes problems with blood flow to the kidneys - A disease involving the kidneys' blood vessels

o Renal parenchymal disease Disease affecting the parenchyma (connective tissue) of the kidneys - A variety of diseases involving kidney tissue