Has anyone had Orthostratic Hypotension with their MS?

[togomalik]

I was wandering if anyone has had orthostratic hypotension with their MS?  I woke up last tuesday feeling like I was going to faint and it hasn't went away.  I did a tilt table and I fainted.  The doctors are saying that it is orthstratic hypotension.  I have read that some people have had it with their MS.  I am just wandering because when I feel like I'm going to faint, I start feeling a tingling, numb feeling in my left leg then in my left arm, sometimes in my spine with a cold chill then up my neck to my head and then I will start sweating and feel like I am going to pass out.  I am new with this MS stuff I just haven't gotten better since my episode in September. I only have one lesion on my brain.  They did put me on medication for low blood pressure but it doesn't seem to be helping.  Yesterday and today I feel so numb.  My head even feels numb.  It is so hard to explain how I feel.  Does anyone else experience this with their attacks?

[Eyesnlegs]

This is another of those really interesting discussions, my MS team acknowledge that there can be ANS involvemnet in MS and sometime ago I posted about this here is the link:

http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Multiple-Sclerosis/Autonomic-Dysfunction-In-Multiple-Sclerosis---following-Quix-post/show/1251217?personal_page_id=870600

I have since found another really interesting paper on this that discusses that issue too and confirms orthostatic hypertension as part of MS:

http://www.pagepress.org/journals/index.php/ni/article/view/ni.2009.e4/737

Hope this is useful

Pat

[steph74]

I'm pretty sure I have POTS.  I've had my eyes "blackout" upon standing in a cyclincal fashion (would last for a few days/weeks and go away for a while) since I was a teenager.  I was told that was normal.  Now my heartrate will go from 70 bpm to 110-120 bpm just from standing up.  I also have tachycardia that can't be explained.  But I've wondered for  a long time if it's neurological.

Stephanie

[JENNIEO]

I think this was my first BIG symptom back in 2008.  I ignored it, thinking it was stress and the fact that I had just bolted out of bed to help my ailing dog.  But now, after being dx'd in August of 2008 and on Copaxone ever since, things have been 'ok' until this weekend when I thought I was really going to faint.  Had a pretty normal day but at some point after getting up from sitting at my home office workspace, I felt the floor coming up to get me - I didn't faint, but can't imagine getting closer to doing it.  I have been rather dizzy ever since.  Weird thing is, before this happend Friday, I told one of my coworkers that I actually felt like I have MS, which normally is not the case.  I had an especially tough time finding words, and lots of typos, and also several episodes of 'zoning out' where I couldn't quite get myself to move.   So I think the almost-fainting spell was not a coincidence.

[jensequitur]

This all sounds so familiar...  I've been having problems with this for two years.  

[togomalik]

Thanks for the information!

[Quixotic1]

Here is some reading material that states that MS IS, indeed, a cause of orthostatic hypotension:

http://www.med.ucla.edu/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=113

http://www.aafp.org/afp/20031215/2393.html

http://www.springerlink.com/content/648j73708n417p71/

http://www.neuro.org.tw/magz/doc/dw200971416479_p293-296.pdf

My conclusion is that orthostatic hypotension can be and often is one of the problems encountered in MS.

Quix

[Quixotic1]

I did some research on this topic and found that orthostatic hypotension (that is low blood pressure when becoming upsight or standing up) is quite common in MS.  Although my MS neuro stated that the autonomic nervous systeim is rarely involved in MS, the medical literature says otherwise.  It is common, and is certainly commonly mentioned here.  Being mentioned here is not scientific proof of anything, but it can be taken as suggestive.

A large number of the nerve fibers in the autonomic nervous system are UNmyelinated.  I think it is because of this that neurologists seem to be reluctant to admit that MS can involve autonomic functions like orthostatic hypotension, sweating abnormalities, and cardiac arrhythmias.  At this point I don't know the answers to this question.

I have a quick and dirty description of the Autonomic Nervous System prepared which I will post as it's own thread.

Quix