can sudden temporary high blood pressure cause brain damage?

[tonyttll]

I had an experience 22 days ago where i was smoking a cig and i was dizzy and my heart was pounding, afterwards i've felt really spaced out and my short term memory and ability to problem solve are alot worse. I had an mri for this so if i did have a stroke hopefully it show up. I also have an anxiety disorder but never experienced symptoms like and so sudden. I have experienced ocasionall brain fog. Any ways this is really depressing me because my brain was very functional before, and now i don't know what i'm going to do if this does not get better. Could this be temporary symptom of high blood pressure? Any advice would be much aprreciated.

[tonyttll]

Yeah thats what i thought. I hope this is some type of somatic anxiety thing. I'm going to have a eeg test in a few days. I wish i had a problem that was ovious and was easy to diagnose and take care of. I;m really getting tired of this. Once again thanks for the advice.

[erijon]

TIA's do not show up on an MRI as they do not cause damage. They can be a normal thing that happens once in a while if you experience a drop in BP. A singular event or two would not be worrisome to me but you should ask your doctor. TIA's do not have any lasting effects either so you should recover completely and quickly.

Jon

[tonyttll]

Hey thanks for responding my mri did come out normal. I'm afraid becaues my symptoms are the same. Do all tia's show up on mri's, will i recover if this was a tia?

[erijon]

High BP would only cause damage if it resulted in a bleed or was caused by a blockage in one of the arteries in your brain resulting in the death of brain cells. What you describe sounds a lot like a TIA (transient ischemic attack) where the blood flow to the interior portion of you brain is temporarily reduced, more a result of low BP than high.

In any case, your MRI should show any damage.

Jon