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Rapidly Fluctuating Blood Pressure?


Freaked

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Often, when I start getting bad with POTS, I'll take my blood pressure and notice that it's all over the place. One second too low, and the next going towards high, and back again. I suppose that's normal when your blood pressure is naturally low and your sympathetic system goes into overdrive to compensate. Does anyone else get these fluctuating readings?

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Yep, happens to me too. This is why I don't technically meet the criteria for POTS and only for dysautonomia. My blood pressure is all over the place and never makes any sense at all. Try to record your b/p before/after doing different activities like sitting, standing, going up/down stairs ect. to see what it does after these activities and if it consistently does the same thing. Another thing to pay attention to is what you heart rate is in reference to your b/p, and to keep an eye on your pulse pressure (the difference between your diastolic and systolic.) This will also help you if you experience syncope or pre-syncope to know what your b/p and hr are doing around he time this happens. Sometimes though, if you're anything like me your b/p and heart rate might be completely crazy and inconsistent and not tell you anything. My doctor originally tried to have my measure my bp 4 times a day but that told me absolutely nothing because it would just be so different for no reason, so I tried doing little tests where I took them before/after doing certain things to see how my body reacted to actions. Good luck! I wish you the best.

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Recently I've been finding my BP can be fairly dramatically different between my right and left arms at the same time. Seems to correlate with when I'm most symptomatic as well. Might be 130/90 on one side and 92/78 on the other. Then on other days, it's exactly the same or very close to the same in both arms.

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Before my bp meds, I had wildly fluctuating blood pressure. I could take it one second and it would be fine ( 112/70) , then the next time it'll be in the 80s/50s... 70s /40s etc... The craziest thing though is watching my pulse. My cuff of course checks the pulse as well, so I can have a good blood pressure reading, and i'm all happy about it until i realize looking at my pulse (115 or so) that the reason my bp is fine is b/c my body is fighting not to short circuit. I've seen my pulse go from 115 one checking... to 42 the very next, a minute later. You can imagine how that makes us feel all the time.

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My BP also fluctuates quite a bit for no real reason. This was caught in my tilt table, so I ended up being diagnosed with mild POTS and orthstatic hypotension. I have never fainted with either condition, though my BP very rarely goes below 100/60. I've been taking a teeny dose of 12.5 mg atenolol at night, and my BP seems to stay between 105/60 to 115/75. I've had less dizziness which is great, and have been taking the stairs a little more at work now. :) Anxiety is a factor for me, too, as I would get anxious at cardiac rehab and get a lot of crazy readings. I wonder if anxiety played a part in my tilt table readings as well, since I was pretty nervous during the test.

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mine fluctuates sitting in the same spot. makes you wonder why it does that so bad when i'm sitting though, since it's supposed to be an orthostatic problem...

also found that being sick can alter your readings drastically. While i've had a flu like virus, my bp actually wanted to stay up near a normal level, but as soon as the virus started leaving, (but i developed bronchitis) my bp started plummeting and now it's worse than normally is

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I have been having this badly for the past month or two. I don't think I used to, or at least last time I was monitoring BP/hr daily my numbers were better! It seems to generally go from approx 110/70 with hr of 60, stand up and it's 140/100 and hr 90, then a minute of standing it's at 120/97 and hr 110, and I would imagine continues to drop (I stop standing still at that point to keep from fainting!)

Glad to see I'm not alone. Anyone know if hypertension (even just on standing) is a big concern? I used to have orthostatic hypotension so now being hyper...I'm confused! I can feel the fluctuations all day long!

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