Posted by proudfoot on August 30, 2010, at 9:22:59
In reply to Re: Managing BP bombshells » proudfoot, posted by violette on August 29, 2010, at 23:22:48
> Hi Doug,
>
> i don't have any information for your situation but wondered if I could ask you a question.
>
> "Plus, it could worsen perfusion in parts of the brain by reducing blood flow that's available there, and thus potentially worsen any brain injury that's already happened"
>
> I always wondered what the adverse effects of untreated chronic anxiety/panic attacks were. Is it possible they could cause damage in reducing flow to the brain, similar to what you mentioned here? Anxiety, from what I understands, redirects your blood towards the muscles. And many people here complain about chronic memory/concentration problems. Could cognitive problems be a result, in part, of chronic untreated anxiety related to the concept you mentioned above? You seem to have quite a bit knowledge of this concept...so I hoping you might know something I don't.
>
> Thanks
>
>Hi violette,
Alas, I must plead total ignorance of any knowledge with regards to anxiety/panic attacks and related cerebral blood flow.
The situation to which I refer is one where a stroke has already happened in the brain, whether from a burst blood vessel due to an aneurysm or from super-high blood pressure (which is the ultimate bad outcome for eating the wrong thing when taking an MAOI), or from a blocked blood vessel due to a piece of plaque that somehow got into the brain from the lower part of the body, your usual garden-variety stroke. My understanding is that when such a cerebrovascular accident (CVA) has occurred, the usual self-regulation of blood flow to the affected area is history, and the local blood flow to the area is thus dependent on the amount of blood flowing into your brain from below.
The nifedipine brings down one's blood pressure outside of the brain by dilating small blood vessels, but in doing so reduces the amount of blood available to flow into the brain, and if the brain doesn't have enough blood flowing into it (with both oxygen and glucose, which are crucial for your brain cells to survive), further cell injury will result, worsening the existing CVA. This is why when a person has had a stroke, the docs want to bring down the elevated blood pressure SLOWLY and in a controlled fashion, not right away, in order to maintain the iffy blood flow to the injured area. Bring the pressure down too fast, the blood flow to the brain decreases, and boom, the stroke gets worse.
The whole question of altered blood flow with a chronic state of anxiety and resultant cognitive deficits is an intriguing one. If I learn more about this in further research online, I'll post it here. Thanks for asking!
Doug
poster:proudfoot
thread:960231
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100829/msgs/960647.html