Primary Pulmonary Hypertension

Unique treatment plans are considered, as individual circumstances for the patient with Primary Pulmonary Hypertension vary from patient to patient.

I wonder if it is what we used to refer to simply as high blood pressure in a person who was “high strung.” I speak of primary pulmonary hypertension, which has been studied and attended to in great depth and found to have the following characteristics or attributes:

Primary Pulmonary Hypertension Defined

Primary Pulmonary Hypertension is what doctors call a rare disorder of the blood vessels and lungs. Also known as PPH, this disorder involves the pulmonary artery, that large vein that extends from the heart to the lungs. When the pressure of blood pumping through the pulmonary artery increases to abnormal levels, it is considered possibly life-threatening.

Primary Pulmonary Hypertension Symptoms

PPH can include the following symptoms: chest pains, dizziness, fainting, fatigue, shortness of breath when person is under little duress or exerting little effort.

Primary Pulmonary Hypertension Causes

The insidious nature of Primary Pulmonary Hypertension is that it is without known causes: if causes are identified, however, the disorder is considered Secondary Pulmonary Hypertension.

SPH is primarily caused, the experts determine, by such illnesses as emphysema and bronchitis, and is also less often caused by—say medical professionals at PH Association—CREST, scleroderma, or SLE. PHA adds that other causes are congenital heart disease, chronic pulmonary thromboembolism, diet drugs containing fen-fens, HIV, and liver disease.

Primary Pulmonary Hypertension Treatment

While a greater incidence of survival and healthy maintenance is reported in individuals who are living with Primary Pulmonary Hypertension—up to 15 and 20 years—medical care is aggressive I its efforts to find beneficial treatment. Doctors and other medical specialists continue to work with such treatment solutions as anticoagulant therapy; digoxin and other oral therapies, including the use of diuretics and oxygen supplementation; and what Dr. Ronald J. Oudiz determines as [continued] conventional oral vasodilator therapy.

Unique treatment plans are considered, as individual circumstances for the patient with Primary Pulmonary Hypertension vary from patient to patient. For instance, as Dr. Oudiz reports, in the conventional vasodilator therapy session, “high does of CCBs are used in patients with PPH…,” though “only patients with an acute vasodilator response to an intravenous or inhaled pulmonary vasodilator challenge…derive any long-term benefit from CCBs.” This means, evidently, that only 20% of patients with Primary Pulmonary Hypertension respond favorably to this particular kind of treatment….

As the expert professionals at PH Association remind us, Primary Pulmonary Hypertension is labeled with a “single name…” but “should not be misconstrued…as being a single disorder.” In other words, this rare disease (developing in approximately two out of every million people each year) has many causes that are as yet undiscovered and unidentified and has many fine minds working on a number of care and maintenance solutions.

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