How Back Pain Can Affect Your Blood Pressure
Category: Spine | Author: Stefano Sinicropi
Back pain can impact your health in a number of ways, but did you know it can also affect your cardiovascular health? According to medical research, there is a link between chronic back pain and an increased likelihood of elevated blood pressure. So if you struggle to control your back pain, you may also have blood pressure issues.
How Back Pain Causes Hypertension
As we mentioned above, chronic back pain affects our health in a number of ways, but there are two main reasons why pain can be linked to hypertension. Pain works to increase a person’s blood pressure because pain elicits two biological responses from our bodies.
The first response is that the electrical pain signals sent out from our brain stimulate a continuous discharge of the sympathetic nervous system, and this discharge contributes to an elevated pulse rate and in turn a increased likelihood of hypertension. The second reason back pain contributes to hypertension is that pain produces a response from our adrenal glands, and this release of adrenaline causes both your pulse and blood pressure to rise.
Symptoms Of Hypertension For Back Pain Sufferers
If you deal with chronic back pain and are wondering if it’s impacting your blood pressure, look for some of the signs and symptoms. High blood pressure doesn’t always produce symptoms, so consider regular screenings, but here’s a look at some symptoms that can be present in individuals with hypertension:
- Chest pain or discomfort
- Irregular heartbeat
- Lightheadedness
- Dizziness
- Fatigue
- Headaches
- Vision problems
- Difficulty breathing
- A pounding sensation in your chest, neck or ears
Back pain isn’t just affecting your back, it could have serious implications for your overall health, so don’t ignore it. We’ll conduct a thorough diagnosis and uncover the root cause of pain so that we can get started right away with a treatment plan. If you are dealing with any of the above symptoms in combination with your back pain, or you’ve just been dealing with chronic back discomfort for quite some time, do yourself a favor and set up an appointment with Dr. Sinicropi or a spine specialist in your area. Your heart will thank you for it.
