vertigo and hypertension

Carrie is recently retired and was planning an overseas trip and a move to a warmer climate when a spike in her blood pressure sent her to the Emergency Room at her local hospital -- an experience which was neither as glamorous as television shows portray nor as callous as it was for poor Edith Rodrigues who died writhing on the ER steps after being denied assistance.

"For many years my blood pressure has been borderline hypertensive -- 140/90," says Carrie, "but my doctor said I wasn't at risk and didn't put me on any medication -- and that was fine with me because I didn't want to start popping pills if I didn't have to."

"One morning I woke up with vertigo and my heart was pounding," says Carrie. "I called my neighbor and she drove me to ER where my blood pressure was found to be extremely high -- 180/95 -- and they thought I was having a stroke."

"I never for one minute thought I was having a stroke because I was otherwise very well, strong and lucid," says Carrie. "And how can I be dizzy and feel like passing out when my blood pressure was so high? Aren't those symptoms of low blood pressure? Something was preventing the blood getting to my head, wasn't it?"

"After various tests to rule out infection, ear or heart trouble, the doctor at ER was more worried about my symptom of vertigo than anything else," says Carrie. "To make sure it wasn't caused by something serious, like a tumor or a bleed in the brain -- he said I should have a CT scan and stay overnight."

"By that time, about nine hours had elapsed since leaving home and my neighbor had left," says Carrie. "I was tired, hungry and thirsty and begged for something to eat and drink."

"A snack and fruit juice materialized and I felt so much better," says Carrie. "My blood pressure had dropped to what was normal for me and my head had stopped spinning."

"I sat there on the gurney observing the chaos around me and tried hard not to look at my bruised arms -- where a novice nursing assistant had tried unsuccessfully to find a vein and draw blood -- and it was a totally surreal experience," sighs Carrie. "I was there, but not there."

"Soon, an orderly appeared and as he pushed my gurney out of the ER room into the corridor towards the X-Ray department I saw a sight that scared the living daylights out of me," says Carrie. "The whole corridor was lined with gurneys and the faces of the elderly people laying on them were ghostly white -- like they were dead."

"The orderly told me they were ambulance cases from nursing homes and this was their 'waiting room' for ER," says Carrie, "and it was at this point that I understood why the waiting time had been so long. What you see in the normal waiting room at ER is only half the story."

"I felt my blood pressure going up again and felt that if I stayed in this place any longer I might never come out," says Carrie. "When we got to the X-Ray department I told the orderly I didn't want to go ahead with the CT scan and wanted to go home."

"I dressed and discharged myself and walked out into the cool night air feeling alive," says Carrie. "The last words of the orderly were -- 'I hope you don't end up back here in an ambulance' -- and I thought, well, if there was anything wrong with me I would find out all about it some other day. Not today, I had had enough."

"That night the vertigo returned -- when I lay down -- and the next day I saw my doctor," says Carrie. "In his opinion, I had benign positional vertigo -- caused by moving ear crystals -- and a CT scan wasn't necessary because I wasn't throwing up or having blinding headaches."

"When I asked whether the vertigo and the high blood pressure were related -- whether a crick in my neck could be restricting blood flow to the brain -- he was noncommittal," says Carrie. "He did say that vertigo is something that happens to people when they age -- it's a degenerative thing -- and that makes sense if a degeneration in my upper spine is putting pressure on an artery."

"He advised me against getting a neck artery test -- it carries risks -- and, to get rid of me more than anything else, he referred me to a neurologist," laughs Carrie. "But he remained totally unconcerned about why my blood pressure was recorded as 180/95 at ER -- and still remained higher than what was normal for me."

"I am at a loss to understand his totally cavalier attitude towards high blood pressure when everybody else in my life -- admittedly lay people -- are telling me about how dangerous it is."

"The last thing I want is to end up on a gurney in the ER corridor with all the other elderly people laying there helplessly -- and I want to help myself as much as possible in order to avoid that fate," says Carrie, "but how can I help myself when neither the ER doctor nor my local doctor showed concern about my high blood pressure?

"Hopefully, the neurologist will be able to shed light upon what happened to me," says Carrie, "and if not then I will request more referrals until I am totally reassured that my blood pressure will never spike again -- with or without vertigo."

"Retirement should be a time to relax and enjoy yourself -- in my case to do the grand European tour and make a long overdue move to a warmer climate," says Carrie. "I cannot do either of those things until I get this problem sorted out -- never to return again -- and while I hate to dwell upon medical matters and lay myself open to hypochondria, anything would be better than another trip to ER!" 

See also:

dizzy spells

deaf and dizzy invalid

old age sucks for women!

Leissa is newly retired, just sixty, and having adapted to grey hair, wrinkles, poor hearing and eyesight, partial incontinence due to weakening of the pelvic muscles after childbirth, a dental plate, loss of libido and the inevitable creaks of ageing joints she is terrified of the more serious degenerative diseases that await her and admits that old age sucks a lot more for women than it does for men.

"My general health has always been pretty good, but by the time I turned 60 this year I was well and truly ready for retirement," sighs Leissa. "On top of everything else, I had developed high blood pressure and had lost a lot of my energy."

"We are so hung up about the physical manifestations of ageing that we completely forget that horrible things are happening to our inner organs, too – our hearts, lungs, liver, kidneys and bowels, etc, are ageing as fast as everything else!"

"Apparently, our blood vessels lose their elasticity from the age of 40 onwards and the heart has to work harder," explains Leissa. "By continuing to work long hours and doing my normal hectic activities I was setting myself up for heart disease, so I took the opportunity to retire early and take things easy."

"I’m not overweight, I maintain a healthy lifestyle and I am a happy, positive person," says Leissa, "but no matter what the esteemed medical authorities say, or the snake oil purveyors of potions and lotions say, all of that is no protection whatsoever against the degenerative diseases that await us all. As mere mortals, degeneration of all vital organs and then death is normal and inevitable."

"There's digestive degeneration to look forward to; the loss of smell; short term memory loss (which I fear I already have, now where did I put my keys!); a decrease in the ability to learn and concentrate; slower reflexes; loss of strength; and the dreaded dementia," sighs Leissa. "If that weren’t bad enough, then there's lung, kidney and liver degeneration and the possibility of cancer and late onset diabetes - all of which, thank God, I’ve escaped so far, but some of my same age friends haven't."

“And, as well as the physical degenerations, we must also face psychological degeneration,” says Leissa. “Depression, I believe, goes along with every physical loss.”

"We're all different, we age in different ways, and die of different causes, but we all suffer some sort of degenerative disease (mostly heart disease) and no matter what you do, ageing is inevitable, you can't turn back time and you can't live forever," sighs Leissa. "None of us is immune from the ravages of time exacerbated now more than ever by modern lifestyle stresses and environmental factors - and in the end we all succumb."

"Turning 60 was a giant milestone,” confides Leissa. “I am now very aware that my days are numbered and that from herein out it is going to be a very bumpy ride."

"Take my word for it: old age sucks, it started sucking at 50 and gets suckier with each passing year!"

Read Leissa's other story the menopausal years