When Carlos Roberto da Silva Lucas, a renovated military man, received the diagnosis of high blood pressure In a routine appointment, he ignored the medical recommendations to start treatment. At the time 43, I did not feel symptoms related to hypertension And therefore, he did not feel the need to follow the guidelines for taking medicine and changing his diet.
Years later, at 47, already acting in the reserve, Carlos Roberto felt bad on a day of work. In seeking medical attention, he found that his blood pressure reached 24 by 18 and was about to suffer a heart attack. After medical appointments, one nephrologist identified an atrophied kidney and another working with only 30% of capacity. The reason: Years of Untreated Hypertension .
“The nephrologist found that one of the kidneys had been paralyzed for over a year,” says Carlos Roberto to CNN . Today, he is 61 years old. “From there, I started treatment with hemodialysis and was immediately inscribed in the transplant line,” he says.
Hypertension is a chronic disease characterized by high levels of blood pressure. The condition causes the heart to exert a greater effort so that the blood is distributed in the body, increasing the risk to various complications, including renal failure and cardiovascular problems such as stroke, infarction, arterial aneurysm and heart failure.
According to the Ministry of Health, 388 people die a day due to hypertension in Brazil. However, the disease is silent, that is, it only has symptoms when it reaches very high levels, such as Carlos Roberto.
Therefore, early diagnosis through routine examinations is critical to avoid health complications and even death. Actions such as National Day for Prevention and Combating Hypertension recognized on Saturday (26), are fundamental for awareness of the importance of proper treatment of the condition.
“We have treatments available for hypertension and we need to apply them. But it all starts with the person looking for medical care and being aware of the importance of the disease,” says Luciano Drager, director of the Hypertension Unit of Nephrology Discipline, University of São Paulo School of Medicine (FMUSP), CNN .
“If the patient is just about trusting symptoms, we will continue in an extremely unfavorable scenario with the impact of hypertension on various diseases, including kidney disease,” he adds.
Treatment of hypertension can avoid transplants and other cardiovascular complications
Carlos Roberto’s case is not unique. According to Drager, untreated hypertension is one of the main causes for the need for hemodialysis or kidney transplantation in Brazil and other countries.
The expert explains that high blood pressure can damage the kidneys due to the lack of blood supply caused by the filling of blood vessels, characteristic of the disease. “There are a number of mechanisms that gradually assault the kidney, by high pressure and reducing the supply of oxygen and nutrients. The blood vessel is becoming increasingly weakened and thicker, determining greater aggression to the kidneys,” he says.
However, as well as hypertension itself, complications arising from it can also be silent, often causing symptoms only in more severe paintings. “In more advanced cases, the person may begin to have bleeding, nausea, vomiting, change of consciousness and mental confusion, but they are already alarming signs of a well -advanced chronic kidney disease,” he adds.
“Even in people who have not yet developed kidney disease yet, it must be thought that it is not risky either. In five to 10 years, it can evolve [para doença renal]. So, it is necessary to treat the pressure to prevent this advance and to avoid severe consequences of hypertension, including, as well as kidney problems, cardiovascular disease, ”he adds.
Using their own history as an example to alert others to care for hypertension and charge appropriate medical care and treatments for kidney patients, Carlos Roberto is currently president of the Paraíba (Renal-Paraíba) chronic kidney, transplanted renal association.
“I knew it was hypertensive, but I didn’t have the knowledge of these effects that hypertension could bring to my kidney system. By luck, I was not affected by the cardiac part,” he says. “I am an example that hypertension can make you a chronic kidney patient. I am an example for everyone to do exactly the opposite of what I did, to look for a doctor, especially if there is a history of family hypertension,” he says.
Physical activity and diet are also part of the control of hypertension
Hypertension treatment can be done with specific medications that control blood pressure. However, care also include lifestyle changes, with the adoption of healthy eating and physical activity.
Among the main recommendations of the Ministry of Health are:
- Maintain the proper weight;
- Avoid excess salt using other spices to enhance the taste of foods;
- Practice regular physical activity;
- Abandon smoke;
- Moderate alcohol consumption;
- Avoid fatty foods;
- Control diabetes.
This content was originally published in silent hypertension: “I didn’t feel anything, until my kidneys stopped” on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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