Is BP Of 150/96 And A Pulse Rate Of 105 Normal?

Posted on Sat, 10 Dec 2016

Question: Last night I was relaxed in bed watching tv and all of the sudden I didn't feel well and then I began shaking and shivering. I checked my blood pressure and it was 150/96, pulse 105 and had to run to the bathroom b/c I lost my bowels. A few min later my blood pressure was 163/140. Over the course of a half hour it slowly came down to 143/83 with a pulse of 101. This morning back down to by typical blood pressure of 110/76, pulse 89. I am a 46 year old otherwise healthy female who works full time as an elementary school teacher, so I'm active. Over the last 6 mo I've had episodes where I've felt faint. I haven't had these issues since August. I've been to the cardiologist with a full work up, everything fine except tilt table test. Diagnosed with POTs but my symptoms don't seem to match POTs b/c my faintness is not associated with change of posture. All of these problems began in April after being sick with a virus for 2 weeks. I would appreciate any insight or thoughts. Thank you!

Answered by Dr. Dr. Muhammad Sareer Khalil (2 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Explained

Detailed Answer:
Hello and welcome

Your concern is appreciated

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is a form of dysautonomia and its orthosatic intolerance with presence of tachycardia and many other symptoms upon standing. The diagnostic criteria for pots is HR increase of 30 bpm within first 10 min of standing in the absence of othostatic hypotention. Patients present with symptoms much more complex, its fairly common to have drop in bp while sine may have increase in bp. Many pts do experience shakiness , fatigue, headaches,lightheadedness, palpitations, nausea, syncope and chest pain and shortnes of breath.
Another possible causes can be panic attacks or anxiety. Sudden increase in heart rate which may be associated with irregular heart rate may be due to arrhythmias, tumors in adrenal glands can cause surge in bp, there is another condition called autonomic dysreflexia which occurs in people with spinal cord injury charecterized by paroxysmal hypertension, profuse sweating, nasal stuffiness, slow heart rate, And its medical emergency. More detail test can be done for pots like quantitative sudomotor axon reflex test to evaluate autonomic system. Currently there is no cure for pots. There can be improvement of symptoms with time.

Hope it helps
Thanks

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar