Is low blood pressure caused from MS?
 

I have been falling asleep during dinner again, sleeping throughout the day again...

BUT...I now have a blood pressure monitor, as advised by doc/nurse, etc...

DH insists on me keeping track of BP while this has started again...it is LOW LOW LOW...80s/50s...pulse seems okay, in the low 60s (it's usually in the mid 70s at rest though).

I can't really find any medical papers online attributing this to MS...but wonder if any of you have heard of or experienced this...

It's one thing after another...:rolleyes:

Funny you say this, because my b/p and pulse are doing some pretty irregular things also. My b/p has been really high (for me), its been 130/80. Now that may sound pretty normal, but my normal b/p has always been 80/60 and my pulse has always been around 80 or 90, now its lucky to reach 60! Last neuro appt, nurse tried to get a b/p on me and it couldnt register anything on the machine or by manually taking it by the nurse and the doctor. Ive never heard of MS causing this, but medications can cause some weird stuff.

I think it's more likely, that some of your Med are the cause. MS can and does do some strange things to our systems, so, it could possibly be the culprit?

My BP was 90/60 during my youth. At night I would often have a resting pulse of 40. This was said by the doctor that it indicated excellent health, a good heart because of the exercise I had done. But it made me tired, and it was suggested I eat more salt to raise my BP. I did not have an MS dx, although it was suspected because of the family connection to MS. However, no dx until AFTER my BP went UP.

In middle age, my BP went up a lot, to about 140/90. The doctor didn't take that very seriously, saying it was the stress of work and I could go on a low salt diet and fix it.
I told the nurse that I suspected that the doctor did not take my situation seriously because I was a woman, a mere woman. The nurse smiled knowingly, and kept smiling a lot more when I saw her in the hall of the clinic (UW Hospital clinic).

Anyway, the low salt diet caused me to nearly pass out several times, and my husband had to rescue me, leave his work to gather me from wherever I nearly passed out. This continued, but finally my neurological status was bad enough so I had Optic Neuritis and got a DX through several tests.

My BP is now wonderfully normal except when I have an "attack". By attack I mean an attack of any of my three diseases which affect my neurological status. Then it can go up alarmingly. I regulate my tendency to get a fast pulse with a low dose of Propanalol, but a-fib can rear its ugly head.

The only time in recent years I have had a too low pulse was when I took a bad medication. Bad for me. The recent culprits have been chemotherapy for high platelets.
Hydrox-Urea and Interferon and Angrelide. All ER level situations. I had to take radiation to lower my platelets, which worked without side effects, but it is dangerous in that 10% or so can get leukemia a few years later, but they say I'm old enough so that won't matter.

I think I remember Dr Wynn and Cathy saying that lots of their MS patients have low blood pressure. And when you have Tysabri infusions it drops more. Mine is slightly high, but it has been low at times. I take a low dose BP med but both my parents had high blood pressure too. So do my siblings.

My BP runs fairly low - when I had my last infusion, I had been running around all over town, and when I got there I was flustered and 130/75.

After a while I dropped to 86/55 and alarms started going off becuase I had dropped suddenly. Then I had to explain that the first result was really high and the later one was 'my normal'. They kept asking me if I was OK and was my head feeling light or dizzy. No, that is just me.

I think that pre MS I was just plain normal - I just look at it as a 'fringe benefit' these days (there has to be something good).

Lyn

My BP runs on the low end of normal. It shoots up when I exert myself. Sometimes when I see doc they take BP 2X. After walking into office my BP is a little higher than norm and they take it again towards the end of my exam to see if it has stabilized. I have always been in the normal range with BP. High BP runs in the family along with being overweight. That has lead me to lead a 75% healthy lifestyle. My oldest sister is only 5'2 and weighs close to 200 pounds. I bought her a xxl pajama set once and she couldn't fit it. I have a niece who lost 150 lbs. and is still plus size. I don't watch everything I eat but I am cognizant that the little things add up. If there is a health condition I can avoid, I'm going to take precautions. MS just makes me want to be healthier but I don't have the energy to.

my BP runs now. im a 90/60 kinda girl. When they put me on migraine meds I dipped under 80/50 and passed out. They have me taking my BP every day for 30 days and I rarely go above 96/62. I did have my BP taken once and it was 157/100 but man o man I was in a lot of pain.

My pulse tends to run a bit high. Most folks are in the 60s at rest, but mine stays in the 80s. Most MDs comment that I have a high resting pulse rate. No one has given me any answers.

All of my brothers and sister have high blood pressure. My mom, my dad, and aunts and cousins are all soaring. Mine, is too low! I have to pump my legs before i get up. I have to wait for it to rise before I start walking.

Saw neuro yesterday-he took me off of zanaflex in case that is causing it. he doesn't feel it's MS related at all.

I showed him the notes of my BP the last week-his eyebrows shot through the ceiling.

We'll see if going off of the muscle relaxant helps at all...

Yes...chronic yo-yo blood pressure
 

A blood pressure spike of 230/160 is what led to my MS diagnosis. Just a few months ago it dropped to 68/45. I have been on/off BP meds since I was a teenager (in 40's now)..now it makes sense. Last 6 yrs I have had all these hospitalizations & test because BP like that has to be heart related....wrong. A year and a half ago they finally figured out my erratic BP and chronic insomnia (9 months of sleeping 2-3 hrs a night- no RLS or sleep apnea) was due to MS. My neurologist and family doctor said my symptoms were so atypical that is why it was missed all these years. I was just about to the point where I thought I was a hypochondriac. Had my normal family doctor not been on vacation and I followed up with the partner covering, I probably would never have been diagnosed properly. She took the time to listen and test, not just change a BP medication. Odd thing, she found it because the BP, after the previous week's spike, was 118/80 and I had been dizzy and I described words sliding together while reading- dizzy is usually low BP and headaches are high BP. I've never had a headache when my BP was stroke level, and when it is low I haven't been dizzy. One thing about MS is you can't compare yourself with others and you have to trust when your body is telling you that something is off.