khaarina Posted October 25, 2012 Report Share Posted October 25, 2012 Hi, I am new to the forum and fairly new to the POTS diagnosis, although I have been sick for about a year and a half. I recently bought an automatic blood pressure monitor to try to identify what causes me to feel faint when I am standing. After a few minutes my pulse goes up about 30bpm, but I already new about that. At around 7 minutes I suddenly feel extremely nauseous and faint and every time this happens, the monitor says "error". Does anyone know what might be causing this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corina Posted October 25, 2012 Report Share Posted October 25, 2012 Hi khaarina, welcome at the forum! I have the exact same problem and think my bp gets too low for the machine to read. But that's just an idea, in reality I'm not 100% sure why it happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MightyMouse Posted October 25, 2012 Report Share Posted October 25, 2012 I've found that sometimes happens with my own monitor when my bp drops so low that the machine "thinks" it's an error. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peregrine Posted October 25, 2012 Report Share Posted October 25, 2012 Same; they can also error out if they fail to detect your pulse, which can happen with low blood pressure or other reasons - some folks seem more prone to it than others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmreber Posted October 25, 2012 Report Share Posted October 25, 2012 I've also had this happen, especially in the beginning when my symptoms were at their worst; it usually happened when I felt faint and got that "red vision" thing. Sometimes I would have to try it a couple times before it would read and then it would be very low. I agree with the others, I think it has to do with it not being able to detect it because it is low? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tuesday Posted October 25, 2012 Report Share Posted October 25, 2012 Happens to me, too. I assume it's too low to measure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arizona girl Posted October 25, 2012 Report Share Posted October 25, 2012 Hi, I noticed you are on atenalol which also lowers your blood pressure and is long acting. Have you talked to your doctor about this maybe having to strong an effect? I was on it and go hypotensive during sleep. I'm now on a short acting form of labetalol, which I use to lower me when I have to be upright in animated situations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khaarina Posted October 25, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 25, 2012 I hadn't considered that it might be the atenolol. I will ask my doctor about it. My resting blood pressure always runs around 105/60 now and I have been on Atenolol 25mg for about a year for my tachycardia. When I do a standing test my bp will raise a little bit and then err out when I feel faint. I figured it was dropping suddenly, but I wanted to get some opinions before I brought it to my doctor, so thanks very much for all your replies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arizona girl Posted October 25, 2012 Report Share Posted October 25, 2012 I see you also have hashimoto, so do I. Did you know that it on it's own can cause a high heart rate. How long have you been treating it? I'm still working with my dosage, but my heart rate on standing has improved since starting synthroid. I'm also treating sfn and immune deficiency with ivig.I saw dr. grubb and he prescribed the labetalol mainly because I swing so greatly. Was your bp rising on standing before you started the atenenol? How do you like the armour? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E Soskis Posted October 25, 2012 Report Share Posted October 25, 2012 Automatic BP machines are not designed to capture extremely low or high readings - even the ones used in the ER only are good for "normal" readings - when your BP or heart rate bottoms out, the machine can't detect your heart rate to correlate a BP reading so, it reads "error" - the ones I use in trauma will eventually "get to know you" if it can take enough readings to calibrate to whatever physiological status is present - so, I always teach staff to "treat the patient not the monitor" - if you feel weak, sweaty, and dizzy and are getting an "error" reading, you need to lie down until your blood pressure comes back up - if you can feel your pulse, you will probably feel that it is either way too low or way too fast (I don't know what your specific symptoms are) - sorry you are having these problems - it sure isn't very fun Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brethor9 Posted October 25, 2012 Report Share Posted October 25, 2012 I have this happen too...my home nurse said it can happen with narrow pulse pressure and having low stroke volume.....she always laughs when I stand up because she can actually feel it narrow if she is taking the pulse manually....freaks her out every time Bren Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpinnyC Posted October 25, 2012 Report Share Posted October 25, 2012 MIne does this all the time too- the worse I feel, closer to fainting the more it errors. For me I think it's when my heart is raising too much too quick and/or when my bp is very low. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katybug Posted October 26, 2012 Report Share Posted October 26, 2012 Same thing happens to me....even on the auto ones at the doctor's offices. I have scared quite a few nurses and Med assistants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khaarina Posted October 26, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 26, 2012 I see you also have hashimoto, so do I. Did you know that it on it's own can cause a high heart rate. How long have you been treating it? I'm still working with my dosage, but my heart rate on standing has improved since starting synthroid. I'm also treating sfn and immune deficiency with ivig.I saw dr. grubb and he prescribed the labetalol mainly because I swing so greatly. Was your bp rising on standing before you started the atenenol? How do you like the armour?I've only known about POTS for about a month, so I didn't know to check my standing bp back then. I started with Levothyroxine about 14 months ago and felt worse on it. I switched to Armour and started taking Atenolol about a year ago. My thyroid labs leveled out, but I'm still sick and it is hard to tell if my symptoms are from my POTS or my thyroid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alex Posted October 26, 2012 Report Share Posted October 26, 2012 several reasons I can think of- machine error - the cuff is too loose or too tight or the sensor is placed incorrectly;- the bp is too low;- the pulse pressure is too narrow (the difference between the systolic and diastolic readings).Alex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southbel Posted October 27, 2012 Report Share Posted October 27, 2012 I've had this happen to be quite a bit too. However, when I stand up, my blood pressure seems to go up significantly along with my heart rate. I have noticed though that my pulse pressure will get lower and lower the longer i stand and think the error is due to the low pulse pressure in my case. When I had my tilt table test, they kept thinking there was something wrong with their machine and spent an inordinate amount of time trying to 'fix' the machine. My cardiologist takes my orthostatics via the manual method because I tend to error out the machines too much. I've seen my pulse pressure get as low as 10 and still be standing, albeit very close to passing out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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