Does This Happen With Pots?

[Nikki]

Within the past few months, I've been getting blood pressure spikes here and there. A lot of times I'll even be laying down while it happens..but if not, I just feel very dizzy and disoriented out of nowhere. I'll usually tell my mom about it, she'll get the blood pressure machine and I'll just go lay down or stay laying if I already am. This happened a few days ago..I was laying in bed and I told my mom it feels like a spike or something. We checked my blood pressure and it was 148/106. After laying for half hour, it started to go down. I eventually got up to go to the bathroom quick, took my blood pressure when I came back over to my bedroom and my blood pressure was 99/83.

While this goes on, I almost always feel chest pressure (where if I take a deep breath in, it makes me so much more dizzy). I also feel very shaky and you can physically see me shaking a bit. Before the other day, it hadn't happen for a month or two and I'm not sure what brought it on..but I realize that out of all the times it's happen, it's always been around 6:00 at night. Sometimes a little before, sometimes a little after..but it's always around then. Never in the mornings or the afternoon.

I think I asked about blood pressure spikes before, but does it make sense that it's usually always in the evenings? All my symptoms are totally unpredictable..but I was thinking about it and that one really isn't. It seems like if it's going to happen, it'll be around that time.

Does anyone else experience this?

[MomtoGiuliana]

I think this can happen with POTS. At least when I was sicker w/ POTS than I am now I would have what I was told initially were panic attacks--my bp would spike, heart race, would feel dizzy and awful--pretty much out of the blue. Didn't seem to have a trigger a lot of the time. This was post partum in my case, and I believe hormonal shifts were causing it.

I don't remember there being any diurnal pattern but I do remember them waking me up out of sleep at times.

[Chaos]

Are you by any chance taking Midodrine? I believe supine hypertension can be a side-effect of that drug. Don't know if it's related to time of day though. I'll defer to all the pharmacists on this site for that one.

I'd think you should let your doctor know of BP's in that range. Certainly if it's a new symptom he should know. Diastolics over 100 tend to get their attention.

[Nikki]

No, I'm not taking any Midodrine. The only thing I'm on right now is a low dose of Pindolol to slow my heart rate (which actually does help most of the days). I had to do a 24 hour urinalysis to see if it was anything adrenal related. The doctor said there could be something firing off adrenaline causing my random spikes..which made perfect sense, but things came back normal. I just don't know what to think anymore. When the doctor explains something to me that would make perfect sense considering my symptoms, it always comes back that everything is fine. Don't get me wrong, I don't *want* something to be wrong..but when I know something is, I wish I could just figure it out already.

Oh well, thanks for the responses though!

[peppermint patty]

Hi Nikki! I have blood pressure spikes too (laying down). They occur at different times

during the day or night. Sometimes it will be the same time several days in

a row. I know the sensation you are talking about. It is like a rush. It just hits out of no where. But along with my spikes, I get strange head sensations, vision issues,

sweating, and severe nausea/stomach pain. It all last about an hour.

I was tested last year for pheocomocytoma (everything normal) and now again the doctors have decided to retest for it.

Hope things are ok and stay settled down. I know how scary it can be....Pat