Alcohol Withdrawal Hypertension

Overcome Alcohol Withdrawal Hypertension with Purpose Healing — Safe Recovery, Strong Heart, Renewed Life

Long-Term Drinking and the Development of Hypertension

Even if you were perfectly healthy before your alcoholism developed, you could still be at risk of more serious health issues like hypertension. Drinking more than you should (typically two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women) can lead to long-term consequences.

Chronic hypertension develops rapidly in those dependent on alcohol, especially those who engage in frequent binge drinking.

The longer that you struggle with hypertension, the more likely it becomes that you will develop issues with your organ health. Liver disease isn’t the only risk for those who drink. You can also damage the heart, blood vessels, eyes, and kidneys in addition to the brain.

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How Does Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome Lead to Hypertensive Urgency?

Unfortunately, alcohol withdrawal can also culminate in increased hypertensive urgency. The first few days without alcohol consumption are the most significant for medical evaluation. Oftentimes, blood pressure will spike within the first 48 hours without alcohol in the body.

In particular, research shows that systolic blood pressure spikes on the second day of your new alcohol abstinence.

This is seen without the need to account for a history of hypertension, delirium tremens, seizures, pulse rate, sex, or race. It is almost universal to see hypertension amidst other withdrawal symptoms.

One of the important points to note here is how age influences hypertension, though. Patients under thirty years old were more likely to experience this spike in blood pressure. As patients grew older, there were much smaller rises in systolic blood pressure.

By the fourth day of severe alcohol withdrawal, blood pressure typically drops by 10 mm Hg.

How Does Hypertension Preceding Alcohol Use Disorder Affect Withdrawal?

Someone struggling with alcohol use disorder may have more health issues than someone who takes excellent care of their physical health. This is a tricky conundrum because it often becomes a question of whether the chicken or the egg came first.

Did hypertension precede drinking, or is it caused by an excess of alcohol?

In patients who demonstrated hypertension prior to developing alcohol addiction, blood pressure is that much harder to manage. Treatment-resistant hypertension is also going to be more difficult to manage in the first 24 hours of alcohol withdrawal syndrome.

The best thing you can do for your clinician is be honest about your medical history. The diagnostic and treatment implications for uncontrolled hypertension are different from someone who only has a mild spike in hypertension as a direct result of withdrawal.

The Difference Between Hypertensive Urgency Versus Emergency

How do you know when you need to seek additional help for your management of alcohol withdrawal? A certain percentage of the population will experience more severe symptoms and will cross the line from mere hypertensive urgency into hypertensive emergency.

How do you determine when it’s time to move from detox to a more acute hospital setting?

Clinicians manage blood pressure in hospitalized patients withdrawing from alcohol in a number of ways, including medication management. However, they also have to account for rapid increases in blood pressure over a short period. This is often calculated as a percentage increase over the base blood pressure readings when you entered care.

If hypertension increases by 15 percent in the first hour and up to 25 percent in the next 23 hours, then it is often time for an emergency intervention.

When Do You Need the Intensive Care Unit for a Hypertensive Emergency?

When should you consider internal medicine for a hypertensive emergency? Chronic alcoholics may want to monitor their own blood pressure with a cuff at home.

Elevated readings (systolic pressure exceeding 180 mm Hg and diastolic pressure exceeding 120 mm Hg) should warrant medical help.

However, not everyone has the tools or capacity to measure their blood pressure. Other symptoms of hypertensive emergency include:

• Severe headaches that don’t abate with over-the-counter medications
• Confusion
• Withdrawal seizures
• Stroke symptoms affecting the face, limbs, and speech
• Chest pain (tightness in the chest, squeezing sensation, or a dull ache)
• Shortness of breath
• Heart palpitations
• Nausea and vomiting

As you can see, many of the symptoms of hypertensive emergency coincide with those of a minor withdrawal from alcohol. This makes it tricky to manage hypertension and will often require a full medical evaluation.

Because of the many clinical manifestations of hypertensive emergency, enrolling in a medical detox should be considered to get more targeted help for withdrawal, mental disorders, and other conditions in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

Help for Hypertension, Delirium Tremens, and More with Medical Detox

When you enter rehab, you’ll often be met first with the Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment Alcohol Scale (CIWA-AR). This helps your medical team determine severe withdrawal symptoms in alcohol dependent patients so that they can develop a customized treatment plan specifically for you.

It measures nausea and vomiting, tactile hallucinations, and anxiety, among other common symptoms.

This is also the best time to let them know if you have underlying treatment-resistant hypertension or if you are experiencing the symptoms of elevated blood pressure. With all of the information gathered, it may be possible to eliminate serious withdrawal seizures and alcohol withdrawal delirium tremens.

Unfortunately, there isn’t one single way to alleviate the risk factors of hypertension. In most cases, a complicated withdrawal will necessitate barbiturates to tame anxiety and treat hypertension several hours or even days after the last drink.