Anyone else have low Blood Pressure?
My BP stays around 110/60 and sometimes is around 98/50
This seems to be my NORMAL and my daughter says not to worry about it unless I get dizzy headed.
I had a weak heart back in 83 and started taking hawthorn berry capsules
(the color would drain from my face and an intense weakness would come over me, with mild perspiration) After about a month on this supplement I was much better, but had to go slowly at heavy work and stop alot because my heart would start pounding.I had a "guardian cat"..who would jump on my shoulder and stay there until the loud pounding stopped (we had moved to TN and I was digging a spring head to catch water for the house) Now, taking 3 capsules a week this doesn't happen anymore. I ran out of them one time for a month and the old symptoms started to resurface.
Anyway, the low BP could be from taking Hawthorn.
My brother just passed in Dec, (from Heart trouble /had open heart surgery in the summer and then kept falling because of PD...could have undone some of the surgery. Mom had a weak heart too...so could just be hereditary.

I also have low blood pressure due to 3 things:

1) weak heart
2) hyperthyroid
3) Sinemet reduces blood pressure!

Keep an eye on your PD drugs!

I thought I'd include the graph I created and gave to my neurologist showing how my blood pressure was declining during the day due to the Sinemet. (Yeah, I'm very truly that much of a geek. lol.) Anyway, the time of day is shown in the X-axis.



Steve

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Aunt Bean, I'm not in a position to preach on this (being very doctor naieve myself), but maybe a visit to an internal medicine doc might be in order. That might give you some peace of mind or be a needed wake up call....

according to the Michael J. Fox website:
http://www.parkinson.org/10signs

i am in good shape, have high BP, sinemet lowers it to fairly normal.

That's interesting.

It's difficult to figure out which problems are caused by PD when there are other things going on.

My best move was to stop seeing a previous cardiologist and to talk my new general practitioner into letting me stop taking the Spironolactone that had been prescribed to lower my blood pressure!

It never had made any sense to me that prescribing that drug to someone who tended to get light-headed due to low blood pressure made any sense in the first place. Then, one day after I stood up, passed out and hit the floor later in the day because of the Sinemet further lowering my blood pressure, I resolved to change doctors.

oh, two other heart drug changes contributed to my overall well-being. First, I had my Simvastatin dose cut in half to 20 mg. That created all kinds of miracles as far as my overall sense of well-being was concerned. Those statins are really risky but for me the risks became tolerable at the 20 mg tablet dose.

Second, I started getting my thyroid medicine from a compounding pharmacy.

Now, my major symptoms are mostly due to my PD. Thanks to finding the right doctor, my other health issues rarely rise to the top.

Steve

Steve, thanks for that graph! Looking at it is scary, I see that both sides of the blood pressure equation reduce while at the same time the heart rate increases, no doubt because the heart is pumping harder to try to keep blood pressure up. I don't remember seeing "lowers blood pressure" on the list of side effects for sinemet, unless "dizziness" counts for that. Good to know.

Yes, both low and high blood pressure are listed as potentially serious side effects. I suppose that low blood pressure would generally be preferred.

Steve

Arisippe: Don't need a doctor...heart seems very strong at this point...was just wondering if other people had low BP, and if it was in anyway associated with PD.
Thanks for the concern