Exaggerated Autonomic Asymmetry

[m@t]

I know most of you chaps here are mainly into the POTS symptoms of dysautonomia but I have a few other symptoms that I have been researching.

One of the things that was noticed is that when I am symptomatic I often get elevated BP but this will be asymmetric between my arms by up to say 40mmhg systolic. So for example we have seem 190mmhg/110 in the left and 150mmhg/100 in the right arm. This prompted investigate for subclavian steal syndrome but on reviewing the CTA and MR it was found there was no occlusion the sub clavian artery. When less symptomatic this difference completely disappears and I will have a BP in the area 130mmhg/70 in each arm. This is repeatable and has been measured in both arms at the same time before swapping equipment between arms and measuring again to remove any measurement bias.

I also get problems with one eye dilating whilst the other does not etc.

I was quite surprised that I managed to find a paper by Derrick Lonsdale which is entitled:

"Exaggerated Autonomic Asymmetry: A Clue to Nutrient Deficiency Dysautonomia"

http://www.webmedcentral.com/article_view/1854

I really wish this wasn't posted in the "Alternative Medicine" category as this will deter most medics from reading it.

None the less I pushed on and read the article and it seems to imply that this can be caused by a deficiency of Thiamine (Vit B1) be it either from lack of dietary in take or inability to process. I did spend the year before this all cropped up on a very strict and repetitive low carb diet with a couple of hours a day of hard cardio work (25 miles cross country cycling) which saw me lose 30kg in weight. I am trying taking a thiamine supplement but there no difference at all at 1 month in. It probably doesn't help that I hate taking any kind of "supplement" as I have always viewed them purely as ingredients for expensive urine.

I also have also had a savage craving for chocolate for the last year or so, not sugar, just chocolate! Researching this also points to this being a symptom of Vitamin B1 deficiency, a rather strange coincidence!

Just throwing the data out there in case anyone has any views or it helps anyone in the future! I would also be very interested in hearing peoples base line BP arm to arm readings and readings when they are having a bad flare up.

Matt