Low Blood Pressure

Friday, 16 October 2009

1:15 am: I was annoyed because I was forced-awoken by Mike’s calling my name. I was wondering what was so important a discovery, from the internet, that it could not be shared after I have awaken up naturally later in the morning!

He was sitting with his legs stretched out, on the recliner chair in the sitting room. He looked pale and perspiring. He told me to get the landline handphone for him. He said he had to call 911 because his blood pressure was dangerously low. He had been feeling unwell and couldn't sleep for the past hour. He suspected that the Prazosin HCL (3 capsules by mouth at bedtime) that he took the night before, was the cause of the drop of his blood pressure. He hasn't taken this medicine for the past 1-1/2 weeks. I took down his reading as 64/44.

Our Sunray City duty policeman came, followed by 2 paramedics and then 2 fire department men. Mike called his son, Roger, as well. Roger and Robin live only a few houses, on the same street, away from ours. Paramedics checked Mike's blood pressure and said that they have to airlift him to Amarillo VA hospital (since Mike is under the medical care of the VA department). They feared a heart attack.

Robin & I was told to drive to South West hospital in Amarillo. There is no heart doctor at the VA hospital. At South West hospital we were told that Mike would be sent directly to the VA hospital. The VA doctor said that the Prazosin HCL has been known to cause low blood pressure. His heart was okay.

Prazosin HCL is a treatment that Mike was prescribed, for his PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Mike's condition was stabilized and cleared for release at about 7 am.

Robin drove Mike and I back to Sunray. It was an hour happy ride compared to the earlier ride from Sunray to Amarillo.