Blood Pressure

Hello All,

I have been thinking about blood pressure lately and its relation to chronic disequilibrium, which is my main symptom. I bought a blood pressure machine and took a reading last night. My reading was 100/64 which from what I understand is quite low…

I am really wondering if blood pressure can cause chronic dizziness or is that me just clutching at straws?

As I have mentioned, my symptoms are loads better when laying down or in motion. Worse when standing still, wondering if blood pressure is at its most effective when standing still and this being a possibly reason…

At 100/64 you are on the lower boundary of normal blood pressure, but I don’t think you would qualify for what is considered “low blood pressure”, especially since you sound like someone who is athletic and exercises regularly. I believe they consider low blood pressure to be having a systolic pressure number of less than 90 or a diastolic pressure number less than 60, so neither of your numbers (from that one reading) would officially qualify you for low blood pressure.

Low blood pressure can absolutely cause dizziness, but I don’t know that it has been linked to the constant disequilibrium you are reporting. I think it is more linked to the lightheaded/feeling faint/sudden unsteadiness kind of imbalance than any kind of chronic imbalance, but I am absolutely no expert. I’ve had a moderately high systolic pressure number combined with a very low diastolic number for most of my life, though my systolic number dropped greatly once I left a job that was slowly killing me about 6 years ago. I found that the nortriptyline has greatly raised my diastolic pressure, as it has raised my stading heartbeat probably 10-20 BPM on average. I’m glad to be off of it–I want to see what my heartbeat and pressure readings return to now that I am. I have loved having a naturally low heart rate and diastolic pressure my whole life and I didn’t like the fact that nortriptyline seemed to counteract that in me.

That all being said, I don’t want to discount you checking your blood pressure and seeing if it is consistently low, or if it fluctuates greatly between the times when you feel better and when you feel your worst. All information is good to have. and you never know what piece of info might be useful for a doctor to know about.

I quite agree with Jamie.

I used to have low-normal BP, went way up, took antihypertension drugs and went low, yadda yadda. BP does not explain my disequilibrium, brain fog, etc.

Suggestion:

If you get especially dizzy on getting up from siting or especially lying down, this would particularly support a BP explanation for your dizziness.

Here’s a simple way to answer your question: do you frequently get dizzy on standing up? If not, I can’t see how your blood pressure is too low for your control system to function effectively.