What should you know about persistent headache and high blood pressure?

Hypertension often has no obvious symptoms, while headaches have many possible triggers, including migraine, illness, dehydration, poor sleep, and medication overuse. A raised reading during pain or anxiety may not reflect your usual pressure, so clinicians commonly repeat it with a correctly sized cuff and review the pattern. Long-standing uncontrolled hypertension can damage blood vessels and organs, including the heart, kidneys, and brain. Obesity and obstructive sleep apnoea can contribute to difficult-to-control pressure. The pairing does not prove that one caused the other.

Sit quietly before checking your pressure, keep your arm supported, and record readings with the time, symptoms, medicines, caffeine, and recent activity. Take prescribed treatment as directed and do not double a missed dose unless instructed. Limit excess salt, avoid smoking, and work toward regular sleep and activity as your clinician advises. Book a review for persistent headache or repeated high readings; bring your monitor if you use one so its technique can be checked.

Call emergency services for a sudden severe headache, weakness or numbness on one side, facial drooping, trouble speaking, confusion, fainting, vision loss, chest pain, severe breathlessness, or a seizure. Seek urgent medical advice for a severe headache with repeated vomiting or a very high reading that remains high after resting. Do not drive yourself if neurological symptoms are present.

Ask how your readings should be checked, whether home monitoring is useful, what may be driving the headache, how medicines should be taken, and which symptoms require emergency help.