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Please Help!

Hello. Please Help if you can! My grandmother who is 83 years old has been suffering for months now with terrible symptoms. First of all, you should know that she has been in the hospital for this 3 times and we have gotten no answers. They have done tests and more tests and not one can give us an answer. I know that she is elderly, and the doctors just seem like they want to blame her symptoms of being older, however our family does not agree. She has been disagnosed with orthostatic hypotension as when she is lying down her BP is high, like 185/95 and then when she sits up or stands up her BP bottoms out at around 60/30 or lower at times. She also has these terrible shaking and suffocating spells that occur each time her BP drops. She starts violently shaking and crying out because she cannot breathe. She also can barely move when this happens. She says that her legs get heavy and she can not make them move. Everytime she has a severe drop in BP spell her health seems to deteriorate more and more. She has been also diagnosed with Early Stages of Alzheimer's disease and she also takes meds for underactive thyroid. Her health has gotten so bad that she can not get out of bed, she can not feed her self, and she even cannot swallow well. All of these symptoms are workse following the weeks that she has these really bad spells with her BPP. She also suffers from memory loss and it seems to be worse when her health is at a low. Sometimes she is cognitive with her thoughts and sometimes she is not. Her coordination hasm been slow and it takes a while for her to understand what we are asking her to do and she states that she has lots of aches and soreness in her body. Our family just wants some answers on what could be causing this. We love her dearly and hate to feel like the doctors are just putting her off because she is elderly. Thank you for your time!
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Avatar universal
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL

Thanks for using the forum. I am happy to address your questions, and my answer will be based on the information you provided here. Please make sure you recognize that this forum is for educational purposes only, and it does not substitute for a formal office visit with a doctor.

Without the ability to examine and obtain a history from your grandmother, I can not tell you what the exact cause of the symptoms is. However I will try to provide you with some useful information.

Orthostatic hypotension is common in the elderly partly from impaired ability to change heart rate in response to changes in position to compensate for drops in blood pressure. There are many causes for this. These can include diabetes, prolonged immobility, parkinsonism plus diseases such as multiple system atrophy or progressive supranuclear palsy, amylodiosis, medications, and endocrine dysfunction. (This is a small list). Many times the diagnosis is aided by an MRI of the brain (make sure it includes a sagittal image and GRE), and autonomic testing such as tilt table and QSART. It is good that your grandmother has had blood testing already. However, I would make sure it includes a thorough neuropathy workup (such as rheumatological panels, thyroid studies, cancer screening in serum and urine, etc), which can be discussed with her neurologist.

Thank you for this opportunity to answer your questions, I hope you find the information I have provided useful, good luck.
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Avatar universal
She is currenly taking meds that are supposed to help with the orthostatic hypotension but so far we had not seen much in the way of good results. She is also on medication for the Alzheimer's/dementia. The doctors have adjusted her meds to make sure that they are not causing her symptoms. She has had blood work, chest x-rays, CT Scans, MRI's, and so forth and so on...and still no answers. One doctor apparently mentioned Parkinson's Disease but the neurologist said he didn't think that was it. Home health has been visiting her at the house and so has Physical Therapy, in which the PT says that there should be some kind of answer to her health issues as when it happens they come on suddenly and tend to worsen with each "spell" in severe orthostatic hypotension that she has. Just weeks ago she was up and on her own and was still pretty cognitive and then she had this severe issue with the drop in BP and she can not do anything with out assistance.
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