Hypertension/High Blood Pressure Health Center

Treatments for Secondary High Blood Pressure

If high blood pressure is caused by some other disease or health condition, like kidney disease or pregnancy, it's called secondary high blood pressure. Sometimes blood pressure returns to normal when the other condition is treated.

Treating the other condition

Treating the condition that has caused your secondary high blood pressure will not always lower your blood pressure back to a normal level. In this case, you may need to treat the high blood pressure itself.

Treating both your high blood pressure AND the other condition

Your doctor may decide to treat both if it will take a long time to cure the other condition or if your blood pressure is dangerously high. If it takes too long to cure the other condition, the high blood pressure will have more time to damage your system.

Treating only your high blood pressure

If treating the other condition will put you at high risk for serious problems, your doctor may choose to treat your high blood pressure only. For example, you may have renal artery stenosis, which typically requires surgery. But if your overall health is too delicate to withstand such surgery, it may make more sense to treat your high blood pressure only.

Types of treatments

If your doctor decides to treat the condition that has caused your high blood pressure, you may have surgery, medicines, or both.

• Surgery. For example, if your condition is due to narrowing of your aorta, surgery to repair that problem may also cure your secondary high blood pressure.
• Medicines. For example, if you have a hormone disorder that affects your kidneys and therefore gives you high blood pressure, your doctor may have you take medicine to treat the hormone disorder.
• Both medicines and surgery. For example, people who have renal artery stenosis and high blood pressure can be treated first with medicines. But if medicines don't work, these people may also need surgery.