The classical causes of secondary high blood pressure are all rare, accounting for less than 1% of all cases of treated high blood pressure.
In practice this means that detailed tests are not usually necessary when high blood pressure is first diagnosed.
Raised blood pressure may be result of a number of conditions apart from essential hypertension. Many kidney diseases cause high blood pressure.
Therefore people are suspected of having this problem, their kidneys are usually checked. In most cases with a single blood and urine test.
Urine test
Urine test to check for protein and sugar in the urine. Leakage of protein may indicate that the kidneys have been damaged from high blood pressure, chronic kidney infection or disease and will need more detail assessment of kidney function.
Testing for sugar is a relatively straight forward way of checking for diabetes.
Similarly, of sugar is present, then blood tests will be needed to confirmed or rule out diabetes.
High blood pressure and diabetes are associated with serious complications and increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, eye problems, kidney problems, nerve disease and premature death.
Blood tests
Blood tests for urea, electrolytes and creatinine levels total cholesterol/HDL cholesterol.
Creatinine is a waste product of muscle and usually your kidneys lose their filtering ability, creatinine excretion falls, and blood levels rise from a normal range of 0.5 to 1.5 mg/dL to as high as 10 to 15 mg/dL.
For this reason, the blood creatinine level is a useful gauge of kidney health.
Tests needed if Suffer from High Blood Pressure
