I’ve been hypertensive and on meds for it most of my life. I was hospitalized for it a couple of months back and they put me on a new regime of meds. Unfortunately, several of the specialists I saw decided to treat my bp more aggressively, and increased the dosages of several meds. Last week I ended up in intensive care nauseous and light headed, and my doc decided I was overmedicated, My systolic pressure was down into the 90s, which is not a big deal for most people but for me it was the lowest reading I had in 40 some years.
So we reduced the dosages and I started out on the lower levels on Saturday. Today at work, my blood pressure is even lower than last week (I have my own cuff) – the lowest reading was 72/59, and repeated readings showed the systolic number consistently in the 70s or 80s.
I have a call into my doctor and I’m waiting for a call back. I feel stuck to my chair – I’m worried that if I get up and start moving around that I’ll end up nauseous or even fainting. Even if I went home to bed, that would just lower the bp all the more. And I’m worried tat some kind of panic reaction would mask whatever symptoms are caused by the bp issue.
It sounds like you REALLY need someone to be around you till you get this sorted out.
Don’t be afraid to ask friends or coworkers or neighbors to keep an eye on you till you do. All in all that is a small favor as far as favors go and I suspect most people would do it without hesitation.
I just went through something similar last month. My blood pressure had been ludicrously high for several months, culminating to a visit to ER with a BP of 182/117. Went through a similar thing to bring down my bp.
Not that low, though. Definitely need to see a doctor and have them re-check your meds.
And, believe it or not, maybe add some salt to your diet.
Seriously.
A friend of mine who was seriously obese went on a long-term medically supervised extreme diet - lost well over a hundred pounds. She got to the maintenance phase, then her BP started bottoming out (she’d never had trouble with it even while overweight).
The doctor had her add salt to her diet. When that didn’t help (as in, she nearly keeled over a few times) he said she needed to ease way back on the maintenance phase and gain a little of the weight back - an extra 20-30 pounds would be less harmful than blackouts!
My doc was very concerned and told me to go straight to the ER rather than to her office. She didn’t say so explicitly, but based on the tests she asked them to make, it became clear she was concerned I’d had a heart attack.
The good news is that I didn’t, and I was sent home in short order. I came into work today, but even though my blood pressure was higher than yesterday, I felt worse. I was light headed and felt kinda shaky when I got up and walked around. So I went home and that’s where I am now. I feel fine so long as I stay off my feet, but long term this is a really bad solution.
Again, you really should try to get someone to just hang around with you till this gets worked out.
I had a friend go through the same sorta thing. I thought nothing of staying at his place a few days until it got worked out. I am sure plenty of your friends and co workers would fell the same. Heck, they might even enjoy a break from the kids and spouse for a day or two
Get some chips and salsa and rent a good movie and they will probably consider it a mini vacation.
There are 100’s of hypertension meds. My first action would be to stop taking/reduce dosage of whatever meds you are on - but I am the person who keeps various meds on hand and takes them on his own say-so.
My PCP has decided I am probably not going to kill myself accidentally.
Keep your phone with you at all times and do not be afraid to call 911 if you start to black out.
Dang. Here’s an off-the-wall suggestion, since that’s probably just what you need right now.
Call an actual pharmacist and ask about all the meds you’re on and interactions thereof. Pharmacists know all that stuff.
My mother fell a couple of times and the second time in the hospital, the doctor (not her doctor, but the ER doc) noted that she was on three blood pressure medications. He took her off all three of them. She doesn’t need any of them any more. I’m not saying you don’t need some, but there might be interactions that the doctors aren’t aware of.
You better keep checking in here regularly or you may have a bunch of obnoxious but well-meaning strangers show up on your doorstep. Not to mention bunch of Dopers.
If you have all your scrips filled at the same pharmacy (or same chain, anyway) they may well have software that will check for interactions.
Drugs.com has a good interaction-checker tool though you have to take it with a grain of salt (not a bad idea, see above :D) - it does warn you of things that MIGHT happen but might not be an issue for you - e.g. I take a beta blocker, and also theophylline, for asthma, and the two can interact and worsen the asthma, but my doctors discussed this and decided that it was almost certainly not an issue for me (and it hasn’t been). Anyway, you put in your whole list of medications and it gives you a list of known interactions.
My blood pressure was high for most of my adult life, so on the advice of my doc I went on medication for it. This seemed to keep it under control, if still a little on the high side.
Well, I got tired of being out of shape, so I started working out regularly. Now my blood pressure is, unmedicated, right about where it should be… unless I work out. Then it drops. When I saw it hit 90/70, I figured it was time to see a cardiologist.
She ran some tests, including a tilt-table test, and told me I’ve got orthostatic hypotension. Basically, whenever I use my core too much, or stand up too fast, my body overcompensates and drops my BP. I’ve never *quite *fainted from it, but it’s come close.
The cardiologist recommended that I increase my salt intake. I’ve also been slowly increasing my core workouts, so that now it doesn’t really seem to drop nearly as often… but it does still occasionally hit me.
The last two days have been substantially better, though by my own decisions, not by anything my doctor has said. I’m still on 4 bp meds, each a once a day dose. I’ve been taking them all first thing in the morning, and morning and early afternoon has been the most problematic. I decided on my own to split up the meds – I take two in the morning and two at night. Not only have I felt better in the daytime, my bp has gotten more stable. At night, 12-15 hours after the meds, the systolic number was climbing up into the 140s, and now that’s not happening. I’ve felt just a little shaky if I move around too much, but the morning bp isn’t plunging down into frightening numbers.
In retrospect it was such an obvious move I’m surprised neither me nor my doc thought of it sooner – especially her.
