20 yr old son with High Blood Presure

[Matt's Concerned Dad]

My 20 yr old son has just been diagnosed with H.B. His recent readings were 160/134, 159/110 and 158/122. For the past few years his B.P. has been border lined high according to the PA's he has seen, but always followed by the comment, "It's probably because he is sick".
He has very bad headaches all the time, and really has trouble sleeping at night. Could the Diastolic part of the blood pressure be causing the inability to sleep? He gets very upset when he just can't fall asleep and I am sure this doesn't help the H.B.!
I am very worried to say the least because other than blood test, no other test has been ran, e.g. EKG, Stress test and so on. We are still waiting on the results of the blood test and no one seems to be too worried about it. I have researched on line and found things like, enlarged heart, swollen heart muscle, and quite frankly, this stuff is about to freak me out.
My son's history, he was premature at birth, (32 weeks) with undeveloped lungs, and a heart murmur. Several blood transfusions were done in the 8 weeks he was in the ICU and I was always worried about this when it was being done. He was on an apnea machine for 1 year and continued to see Doctors throughout this time. He seemed to outgrow these things according to the Dr's but could this be directly related to the current problems.
At 16 his Gall Bladder had quit working and was removed.
That seemed to be something that someone older would have done and now this B.P. concern.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated,

Sincerely,

Matt's Concerned Dad:-(

[Rachelmek]

It sounds like his kidneys are working too hard. I suffer from what is called Polycystic Kidney Disease (google it) which causes chronic kidney stones. Many people have this disease with no signs until they are much older. When their kidneys begin to fail them. The main symptom is high blood pressure beginning as a young adult. why? Because your kidneys are working too hard fighting off the cysts and they are not filtering correctly. I was diagnosed with PKD in July last year after a car accident. I just happened to decide to see a friend who happened to also be a urologist as I did not have medical insurance and knew he would let me pay it out.  He ran a series of tests and came to find I had chronic kidney stones. A total of 6. Just in there. Probably been there for years. If you have high blood pressure on top of chronic stones I highly recommend you get tested. A CT scan is the best way to get diagnosed and make sure you see a Urologist who. If you would like to here more about my story I will happily tell you. Before you get tested you need to know this is a fatal disease and this will affect your ability to get life insurance and affordable health care if you do not have it prior.

[Sweetwaterguy]

I am a retired school psychologist and the comment, "his mind just never seems to rest," raised my antenna.  I say that because in my practice, a number of my premature students who we evaluated had attention issues--if  what you describe is an attention issue.  We know there are sometimes central nervous system issues related to these problems.  
Perhaps it would be prudent to ask your physician if he thought a neuropsyc and/or neurological evaluation might yield some information which could be helpful to his medical treatment.

[Matt's Concerned Dad]

Hello everyone. We have gotten our results for my son's HBP. The Doctor said that his Serotonin is at a dangeroursly low level and was plased on some medication. If the med's aren't working by Wednesday, he is to g back in to see the Doctor for some other medication.

My question's are,

1. What causes this?
2. Does this sound correct to you?
3. Should I be requesting some other test to be done?


While the things the Doctor said made a lot of sense about the sleeping disorder, the headaches, HBP and the fact that my son says that his mind just never seems to rest, I feel like there should be some other test ran to make sure that there are no other serious medical problems associated with this.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated,

D

[Carey01]

I was diagnosed with HBP at 23. I'm 38 now.  My numbers werent that high but pretty close.  It runs in my family.  They ran several tests looking for a cause while treating the high pressure.  It turned out to be essential hypertension meaning no primary cause.  I have taken medicine for 15 years now and it is generally under control.  Definetely get to a good MD -- my Dr specializes in cardiology.
Let us know what you find out. Good luck!

[calico1]

Does hypertension run in your family? I would assume that your son's primary care doctor has already checked his kidney, thyroid, or adrenal glands functions.  Good luck!

[Cleveland Clinic]

Matt's dad,

Multiple readings of high blood pressure on separate occasions confirm a diagnosis of hypertension. In a young patient, it would be important to look for secondary causes of hypertension. There are reported associations with the development of primary hypertension in young adults.

Either way, it is important to look into treating hypertension no matter what the age. Depending on the level of blood pressure, the treatment can entail lifestyle modification, pharmacotherapy or a combination of the two.

It might help to seek another opinion if you are not comfortable with the current therapeutic plan.

good luck