My dad was admitted to the hospital last night after an episode in which his blood pressure dropped precipitously, eventually leading my stepmom to call an ambulance. He is at this moment under a physician’s (actually multiple physicians’) care at one of the best hospitals in the world, and so obviously I am not looking for medical advice here. I just haven’t had the opportunity yet to ask my dad and stepmom for further details, and the hospital is still running tests, so I just want to have a better understanding of what might be going on.
What little I do know is this:
– Dad has no history of heart disease, nor any major risk factors (no family history, not significantly overweight, low cholesterol, exercises regularly, eats a healthy diet, etc.)
– However, unbeknownst to me until I got the e-mail from my stepmom at 4 a.m., he had a prior episode like this some years ago.
– I don’t know what tests have been run or are in the works, but my stepmom told me that they have ruled out (in her words) “all the really scary stuff,” such as a heart attack.
So what are the remaining possibilities, and how many of them are something to be really concerned about?
If they’re ruled out the ‘scary stuff’, the most likely cause (on a statistical basis at least) would probably be vaso-vagal syncope, a reflex drop in blood pressure from vagus nerve stimulation.
Many things can trigger this reflex, and since I am on vacation and the pool is calling, I won’t enumerate them.
That happened to me in the doctor’s office once - he was squirting a horse-sized syringe of Synvisc into my screwed-up ankle joint. It wasn’t fun at the time, but the results were worth it. I felt pretty crappy for a few minutes, but it wouldn’t have occurred to me to call an ambulance.
Nothing that I believe is relevant - he takes asthma and allergy medication, oral steroids I believe, but I don’t know exactly what. (Dad lives in New York, so it’s not like I see his medicine cabinet on a regular basis.) I don’t think anything he takes should have side effects like that (I’ve taken similar meds once in a while - my asthma isn’t nearly as bad as his.)
If someone been taking oral steroids on a regular basis and suddenly stops them, one of the consequences can be a drop in blood pressure. I mention this only for interest since other causes are still more likely in your dad’s case (on a statistical basis if nothing else).
Dad didn’t mention it, but I really doubt that after decades of oral steroids, he’d quit out of the blue.
Still no real news, but one small update - when I talked to Dad yesterday, he said they were going to give him an echocardiogram. When I said “hey, that’s what they gave me years ago when they diagnosed me with mitral valve prolapse!” he replied, “yeah, I have that, too.” All sorts of stuff Dad doesn’t think to mention, apparently- couldn’t these symptoms just be a flare-up of mitral valve prolapse? (That’s what mine were - apparently Dad got dizzy enough that he had to lie down on the floor of the restaurant. Similar stuff has happened to me - I didn’t have anyone around to take my blood pressure, though.)