My blood pressure is rediculous. It can be high in the morning and low by noon. Your history of stones leads me to believe your decalsifying like an astronaut. Osteoporosis doesn't cause high blood pressure, but you may find some joint damage where enough pain is sending an overload to your autonomic nervous system. If you are doing range of motion, give it a break and see if your BP stays more normal. Just getting up in my chair use to cause spikes in my bp. Since I began taking atenelol my bp stays pretty much under control. It still can drop low fast but if I lean to the left and add weight to my worst hip, my bp comes right up. Coffee can work too. You seem certain your high BP is not from urinary tract (pee) or bowels (poo), so its almost certain to be a result or pain. The three P's of AD. So, you need to discuss this with your doctor. It will not get better and you should be prepared for any possibility. All of us should take the time to set up a living will and durable power of attorney. I think many of us do not want to be in any veggy garden and AD can do that so fast and come on suddenly. What Quadius describes is a slowly creeping form of AD. Most quads think AD is a typical part of living with a spinal injury. My experience has been, this is a countdown clock. The worse your condition becomes, the more often you feel the symptoms. The more frequent and intolerable these episodes become, the closer we get to the last one. I don't mean to sound morbid or overly urgent, but I think most of the folks in the group want to know and understand what is serious and what is just irritating.
BW john ________________________________ From: Quadius <[email protected]> To: quad-list <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 2:29:33 PM Subject: [QUAD-L] BP I was experiencing some severe fatigue problems over the last three or four weeks and I now believe it's because my blood pressure has been spiking up and I wasn't aware of it. Earlier this week I got a slight headache, so I decided to have my PCA checked the BP and it was 140/94, but it ended up going out to 160/103. The problem is I knew my bladder was okay and my bowels had just been indeed the night before, so we checked the skin, look for any possible infection sites, made sure I had no ingrown toenails or any other thing that causes autonomic dysreflexia (AD). After being totally flummoxed, I had the PCA but the nitrogen gel on me to lower the BP and then we irrigated the bladder. The blood pressure stayed up for a while and then eventually dropped. The main problem is my BP continues to spike every morning and I have gotten to the point where I don't even have a headache any longer when my BP is pretty high. I went in to see the doctor and explained what was going on. He was thinking that this might be the same thing I thought, bladder stones. I have had a history of bladder stones, so I had called in earlier trying to get a sonogram schedule. Well, the sonogram was today and it showed no stones in the bladder, gallbladder and a very small calcification in the left kidney, but it's not obstructing anything. I probably forgot to mention that I am having bladder discomfort, but is not associated with a UTI (they discounted this during the Tuesday clinic visit) or bladder stones. I have a suprapubic and normally have no problem with it, however, lately I have been having a lot more discharge around the stoma and even a little bit of blood every other day or so. My bowels do cause me discomfort, but I don't think it's enough to actually put me into AD. They have in the past caused AD, but I have pretty good sensation in the bowels and the bladder. Anyway, I would like to hear any of your thoughts about what might be causing my BP to spike every morning. I have occasionally had problems in the wheelchair, but thankfully it's not producing AD. Thanks for your feedback, Quadius
