Hypertension and Hypertensive Emergency

The patient has a history of underlying hypertension, but then we also have some other evidence that can tell us that this is chronic hypertension. There's no clear way to definitively determine this, but the probability of secondary hypertension goes up if someone's refractory to multiple medication and so you're starting that fourth anti-hypertensive agent or it's somebody who's really young in their 30s with severe hypertension. Two common meds might be ingesting two exogenous substances: glucocicoids and oral contraceptives. We'll focus on those first because the base rate is going to favor those drugs.