Has her blood pressure been checked repeatedly, when she is lying down at rest, sitting upright, moving around and walking?

My dad used to have high blood pressure but as he has aged (he has a typical parkinsonian syndrome) has has now developed something called orthostatic hypotension. This is apparently more common with aging. It was not detected until he was hospitalized and the physical therapist there took his blood pressure repeatedly while engaging him in getting up out of bed and walking him around.

Basically with activity his blood pressure goes down. But when he’s lying flat his blood pressure can be high. He’s now on a blood pressure medication that raises his blood pressure but he has to measure his blood pressure before he takes the medication. When he goes from a lying down position he sits on the edge of the bed and waits and is careful while moving around and walking.

I would take low blood pressure seriously because in the elderly the major risk is fall risk, and low blood pressure can contribute to fall risk.
My understanding is that sometimes low blood pressure in the elderly can be asymptomatic—Their blood pressure can be very low but they don’t feel dizzy.
I wonder what your mother’s blood pressure is when she is trying to walk around the house.

Have you had them do a complete blood draw? With my mom, they discovered a one medicine caused her thyroid to overreact an another medicine was causing other issues. Once they changed dosages, dropped a medication and added a new one things came back into alignment. She has afib and congestive heart failure.

Anonymous wrote:Why didn't her doctor stop med altogether rather than lowing it?

She said my mom needed it to help control the afib so she didn’t want to stop it altogether. She did indicate that blood pressure that was too high at this age is better than too low.

My moms activity has slowed significantly although she’s actually gained a little weight. But maybe the drop off in activity is contributing. Meds were changed today so hopefully her blood pressure will increase.

Why didn't her doctor stop med altogether rather than lowing it?

My dad has Afib and congestive heart failure. He, too, has had issues with low blood pressure in the last few months. They figured out it was his meds - his level of activity is much lower and he lost weight, so his meds needed to change along with this. His providers adjusted the meds and don't seem too worried about it.

So this thread doesn’t get deleted I’m going to open by saying we just got back from the doctor, are under a doctors care and following their recommendations so I’m not looking for medical advice, just wanting to see if anyone else has gone through this.

Okay now that that’s out of the way we just got back from the doctor and my moms blood pressure was really low (86/55). They actually took it twice to confirm. She’s 82, has a-fib and is on a blood pressure medicine to reduce high blood pressure. This low blood pressure is a new development. They’re going to lower the dose of her blood pressure medicine and we’ll check back in a few weeks. She’s been fatigued lately but I just figured it was due to her age and activity level.

I figured I’d check to see if anyone else had experience with this, possible causes, things we should be looking for?