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blood pressure above 280

Has anyone experienced blood pressure of over 280 close to 300? Could you please share what you were feeling at the time, all your symptoms etc. It would be so helpful to get insight..thank you!
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Avatar universal
Yes! I had a BP of 290/240 (ER numbers) when checked into the ER with chest pain in the middle of my left pectoral area. It was strong but not overly painful. Told them I think I'm having a heart attack.  The pain hit about a mile from the Hospital, so I drove as did not have shortness of breath or numbness in my arms. I did have pressure behind my ears and my mouth started salivating profusely. I had to keep my mouth open or it would fill complete in seconds. The didn't think I was having a heart attack and almost sent me home. I demanded to be kept overnight and they were to do a stress test at 9 AM. At 9 AM the heart attack hit hard.  I had a stent put in my  left anterior descending artery which was 100% blocked. It's called the Widow Maker heart attack. If  they sent me home from the ER, then I'd  be dead today.  
Helpful - 1
Avatar universal
I have had mine reading that high a few times. I ended up having a double heart attack and, at the time they ended up putting two stents into my heart arteries to help clear the worst of the blockages and try and keep them clear.
I had, at that time, experienced severe headaches, periodic light headedness, extreme short of breath. 'Light flashes' in my eyes periodically.
My BP actually got so high when they had first admitted me to the hospital it went OVER the 300 maximum on the Blood Pressure monitor, so we never actually knew how high it truly had been.
My advice, go in and see your family physician and, if able, a heart specialist (cardiologist). Not all blood pressure problems are caused by heart problems, so that is why the Family Doctor should be your first visit. However, if you check it at home and it IS that high and you are experiencing any of those "odd body symptoms"... if you have a family member or neighbor who can drive you to the emergency room, then ask them. They will be happy to do so because all of us know that the same thing can happen to them and they would want such a favor done for themselves. If you do not have someone to ask, then call the ambulance; I do not recommend driving yourself to the hospital emergency room because you could have a heart attack along the way and kill innocent people  with a crash. Also, just from personal experience... IF you did drive yourself and park in the hospital lot. If they ADMIT you as a patient, when it comes time for them to let you go back home, THEY WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO DRIVE YOURSELF HOME. Period. They will require that someone come and pick you up and agree to take you home and see to it that you get properly settled into your place before the leave...
So leave the vehicle at home... :-)

Take care of yourself; it is the ONLY body you will have in this lifetime.
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2 Comments
That is an excellent share of information!  Appreciate it and very glad you are okay after that experience!
Mine was different. I drove myself as I was just a mile away. Was in the hospital for my heart attack for 4 days. They wheeled me to the front door, I walked out, and drove home.  Now when I had my Colonoscopy they required a driver who would be there the whole time.  
Avatar universal
Yes, mine was extremely high, and it came on suddenly.  225/120.    I’ve never had high BP in the past, except after an accident involving a concussion. I also have no symptoms other that getting irritated over something minor.  That’s what made me check it. I’ve had a lot of tests...blood, Renal, Echo, 24 hr urine. So far nothing. I hike everyday and that always brings it down. I’m taking Lisinipril  and Potassium as well. I’m 72 yrs. in good health otherwise. The high numbers are always in the morning, right after getting up.
I also have an allergic reaction to beta-blocker meds
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1 Comments
longerliveExternal User
You are so blessed. You are 72 with no major health problems.
Avatar universal
Excellent post.    My rule is:  if the systolic (top number) is over 180 or the bottom number (diastolic) is over 110, it is ER time.   Better safe than sorry.

Helpful - 1
Avatar universal
My blood pressure was at 280 when the medics came to take me to the emergency room.  I became nauseous, experienced chest pains that felt like pressure on my chest and upper arms, and felt like I needed to lie down.  Although I functioned, I later remembered little of anything.  I don't remember my blood pressure being taken or the ambulance ride to the doctor.  My blood pressure was down to 220 before I started remembering anything.  The doctors said that I didn't have a heart attack, but until the catheterization, they thought that I had because of the enzyme troponin that my heart produced.  Hope this helps
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1 Comments
280? Hm. Are you talking about readings on the normal 120/80 optimal reading scale? That's so scary high. What do you do now to manage your bp? Did they ever find what caused that huge spike?
20850284 tn?1536403073
I am sharing to some of the symptoms of if you have an over 280 close to 300 the high blood pressure: a Severe headache, Fatigue or confusion, Vision problems, Chest pain, Difficulty breathing, Irregular heartbeat, Blood in the urine, Pounding in your chest, neck, or ears.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
I've reached 300 at one point. But didn't feel anything at all. It was like a medical exam that I had to take for pre employment. The nurse initially took my bp reading it was at 290 then she didn't tell me but instead went straight to the doctor and the doctor called me over to his desk and asked if I was feeling something wrong. I asked the doctor should I be feeling something doc? He said yes but I really wasn't an he told me my bp was extremely high and he took my bp himself and it was still 290 then they gave me some catapress and had me wait 30mins to take my bp again. After 30mins it was still 290 so had me take another catapress but the same thing. Then after 3 catapress tablets and 3 hrs I asked the doctor if I could go gohome since it was getting late. He said I he's afraid I might not be able to go back tomorrow if he let me go. I took this as though I didn't pass the medical exam and wouldn't get the job. So he took my bp again but this time it was now at 300. Which scared the hell out of the doctor but I insisted if he could let me go home since I really don't feel anything so he had me sign a waiver and let me go. Until today I still don't feel anything even when I have higher do reading.
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Avatar universal
As usual, I get to be the freak in the room. My name is Nicholas Allen, I'm a 32 year old moderately fit Caucasian male, 5 feet 10 inches, 190 pounds.  My whole life I have dealt with random heart palpitations, doctors told me it was normal for some of us. Occasionally I would get soul crushing, body crippling headaches the only thing that ever stopped them was Excedrin migraine, so I assumed they were migraines... I was very wrong to assume this. On multiple occasions, for one reason or another I would end up at the e.r. of three rivers community hospital.   Everytime I was in there I was told by the doctors that my blood pressure was the highest they had ever seen...ever.. and that's when it was low for me.. finally after years of having no insurance to follow up with a primary care physician, I was struck with another migraine except this time I started peeing little black chunks of tissue or something with every urination, a day or two of this I stopped passing anything resembling urine and was peeing straight blood and black chunks of stuff.  terrified I went to the e.r. and they took my blood pressure at which point everyone stopped talking and started staring at me, wide eyed in fear and confusion they asked me if I felt dizzy or disoriented, which I did not.  they told me not to stand up, or move at all, that my bp was 280/173.  and I had been up and walking about like this for days. the black stuff in my pee turned out to be pieces of my kidney being destroyed from the pressure of the blood being forced through them... and as soon as they got me on hydrochlorothiazide, losartin, lisinopril, carvedilol, and famotadine for heartburn from the other meds my blood pressure is now mostly normal. in case you are wondering it turns out my heart is 3 times the size it should be.  it's a genetic disorder, one that should have been tested for but without insurance I just didn't have the funds to do that until it almost killed me. but today I am doing much better. so hooray!
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19799689 tn?1484547154
Yes!  When medics arrived they immediately,  took my blood pressure and already found my reading at 300.  My symptoms blood would trickle out the side of my nose to a slow continuous stream of blood.  Till I would become aware of my blood all over my body, floor,etc.  Constant headaches for about a month.  All these symptoms occurred till the dizzy-drunk sensation.  It wasn't till my dizziness magnified that cause my entire left side to drop.  Head to toe numbness with a 5 cm bleed in my right basal ganglia... Killing all the affected cells within the blood zone.  TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack) This happened 4-5 years ago.  I still get fatigue. left side still numb, loss of strength.  I seem to struggle holding a cup. I was suicidal.  emotional states were totally out of wack.  I found myself flirting with every woman I had my focus on, eventually leading to an overdose on diazepam aka valium (enough to kill a horse). I was off my face for a week.   First & last time.  Hope this helps.
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1 Comments
I'm so glad you survived that.
Avatar universal
My mother just died (less than a week ago) after her blood pressure hitting 280 on the operating table as the surgeon went to close her up during open heart surgery to repair her heart which had been badly damaged some weeks before during a prolonged period of fibrillation.

The only problem was the doctor could see the heart & it wasn't racing this time. They just got her BP under control by using "industrial doses" of drugs "enough to kill a rhino" (surgeon's words, not mine) when the same thing happened again.

The anethetist was of course very reluctant to give her any more drugs for fear of killing her, until the surgeon pointed out she was dead either way, definitely if he didn't. After the operation the surgeon said he couldn't be sure what damage this had done...it didn't matter though, my mother died within 24 hours from several serious complications, never having regained consciousness.

Now here's the thing...as soon as this surgeon (an expert & authority in his field) saw this BP spike he immediately knew there could only be one thing that could cause such massive spikes instantaneously without a correlating increased heart rate, every blood vessel in the body would have to contract all at once.

Now the only thing that can cause that he said, is so rare the surgeon couldn't believe what he was seeing, but he was seeing it alright, for the first time in his career in fact...Pheochromocytoma, tumours that develop in the adrenal glands.

When I spoke to him half hour after the operation he felt confident we'd find these through a newly developed test which looks for a specific enzyme these tumours release into the blood stream, but we never got the chance of course.

The only problem was & what I wasn't told, was that he now knew he had performed the wrong operation, he had gone after the symptom & not the cause, the work he performed on the heart (although performed with great skill & expertise) had now resulted in weakening my mother that badly that she had no chance of survival from the onslaught of adrenalin these tumours were having the adrenal glands pour into the bloodstream.

The surgeon would have had to of known, from the moment he saw that BP spike & concluded that it must be Pheochromocytoma, that my mother's chances of survival were now almost nil due to his inability to diagnose these tumours prior to the operation & therefore damaging the heart whilst these tumours created an environment that would never allow for the heart's repair before eventually killing my mother...simply put, he had performed the wrong operation, leaving the cause of the initial problem there to now kill their host due to surgery making the heart much more vulnerable.

I contacted the coroners office a couple of days later to ask had they been instructed to look for Pheochromocytoma...to which they answered "no", but then went onto to say "...your mother is here because someone somewhere thinks something went terribly wrong. She came in for a routine operation & died of several serious complications for which we have no explanation. This suggestion you've now presented however would explain all the complications we're seeing here. Stay by the phone, we'll be back to you in a couple of hours."

Sure enough a couple of hours go by & the phone rings, it's the coroner "You're not going to believe what we've found..." But of course I already knew.

BP of 280 can cause serious &/or life threatening damage to all major organs, brain, heart, kidneys, liver...anything with blood vessels realistically. The coroner found a massive bleed in the chest cavity from where the continued onslaught of adrenalin was obviously causing the fresh repairs of the heart to fail under the unanticipated blood pressure.

My mother never had a chance without having these tumours diagnosed, located & removed prior to heart surgery. My family has paid the ultimate price for this knowledge...if by someone reading this it saves just one persons life then my mother's death has achieved something.

Because right now it seems completely unnecessary & the only thing that it has achieved is tearing my heart out & leaving a sorrow in my chest that I can not begin to describe, I never knew anything could hurt so much...I miss my mum, she was the greatest mum in the world, she was my mum.

I miss you mum...I miss you so much.
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1 Comments
Did she have blood pressure problems?
Avatar universal
I ignored it for ages. Went to doctor , sent to ER. Hospital for 2 weeks. Had all the tests. Diagnosis resistant hypertension. I was not happy, as after 5 long months i was dosed up to taking 13 tabs a day and still BP was average 181/100.
I got a second opinion, which eventually led me to a new drug to take called aldactone. The result was dramatic, my BP went down like a stone, to average 95/63 ! But I hate the side effects. The big drop on aldactone has led us to re test for Conns etc . ( An Adrenal condition) This is sometimes difficult to locate, so its on going. Im hoping to go to Maurice Brown in Cambridge, who is a specialist in adrenal / Aldosterone problems
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1 Comments
What is adrenal? Did they mistake it from being high blood pressure?
11849443 tn?1441302841
How long did you ignore it?

How are you doing now?

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Avatar universal
Hi. Mine was very high, which i ignored for a good while. It went up and I ended up in ICU for my sins. It hit 280/160. I had difficulty breathing, . particularly lying down. Headaches Foggy feeling in head and funny pulsing feeling in head and face. It caused heart failure, my ef was at 15%. im a 50 year old male, no previous history of heart probs. If its over 180; The rule is ER to get it down.
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14696119 tn?1435948420
Hello valda ,yes I have but I was in the hospital and was not let go until it went back down to 140/80.I have hp and who ever has that reading should go to the hospital immediately .I had a friend who died cause she never went to see a doctor  with a reading over 200.please take care of your self and your loved ones because no one else will.
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1 Comments
I'm so happy you survived that!!
Avatar universal
Hello,
These numbers are very, very high and in this case you should seek a medical help as soon as possible. I haven't experienced such a high blood pressure, however my grandmother has had around 200/140 and she was taken to the hospital immediately. According to her experience I can tell that such an increased blood pressure causes severe headache, dizziness, fatigue and the feeling of haze in your head.
Helpful - 0
4 Comments
I was very tired and took a nap today between 12-2:30. Woke up with a severe nosebleed. I took my blood pressure and it literally was 286 over I want to say 258 tell me what to do it's lowered now but I'm very scared
GO TO THE DOCTOR OR ER IMMEDIATELY
What's hate? I'm on bp medicine for hypertension for about 4 years. Was taken lisinopril for 3 years n bout year now taken losartan, my bp was 160ish over 95,and I had no symptoms but headaches and felt so tired during the day. Never exercise and all. My younger brother 4 year younger than me just last Sunday recently had a stroke his bp was 280/179 they said if he'd been little older 38/40 it probably would killed him. It's crazy!!!! Just little age difference.
longerliveExternal User
Glad that your brother was ok. High pressure is nothing to play with. I also suffer from high pressure
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