Are there any other sufferers from this weird variation on a theme here? I did a quick search but couldn’t find anything. Be two people! By day your blood pressure is screamingly normal at 117/70, by night just screaming at 170/117, and all you did was lie down and sleep. I have no idea what triggered it and only discovered it by accident. Reputable medical sites say it can only be identified by ambulatory monitoring, but that's not actually true. Should you happen to be up in the early hours, for instance to use the loo, and take your blood pressure, you can get a very nasty shock. With hindsight I reckoned it'd been going on for a few weeks. Greatly increased frequency of nocturnal urination is apparently a sign. I thought high time I kicked the coffee/UTI?/drinking too much water!
My systolic 4 times reached 180 (+) during the night and was otherwise in the 160s and 170s: I was up all night because I was scared of it getting worse. It would not come down./maybe meditating kept it lower than it would otherwise have been. Naughty naughty BP. Mine unless I'm very stressed always tumbles down after five minutes of meditation. At quarter to seven am it was 180/93 I was very frightened and went to A+E. Not that that was much good but that saga can save for another post. Maybe they thought it was just a spike but it wasn't. Normality became something like 180/91 on waking at 1.50 am, down at 5 minute intervals through meditation →176/93 → 159/97 → 111/171, going back to sleep and waking to 172/40, which again went right down and remained normal throughout the day to surge at night. Now on 5 mg Amlodipine.
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Bitsi
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Hi! Like you, I am also trying to understand what is going on with BP changes. I know perfectly well that BP changes during the day, in very broad limits, depending on what we do. I know that we usually measure BP when at rest, but do we always wait long enough...? Personally, I am a bit nervous and never wait 15 mins or more.
I have a hypothesis about why BP starts being poorly regulated and goes up and down. In elderly (but not only in elderly), Autonomous Nervous System loses its capability to regulate precisely many things, that were well regulated when they were younger. Our vision is the first that gets poorer and varies with the time - I have experienced periods where it got better, then poorer, then again better and so on. In some people (mostly women), the regulation of body temperature gets poorer, so they have the feeling of being too hot, then of being cold and so on. Also, in some people, the regulation of body parts' position gets poorer, so they get shaky hands or other body parts. BP may be only one of many things that start being poorly regulated - unfortunately it is very easy to self-test, so people get worried... For instance, regulation of vitamin D in the blood also gets poorer, but we have no idea about it, until a blood test is done, I had the latest blood-test 7 years ago, so God knows what all is out of the recommended limits, lol.
Lately, my slightly increased BP (say 170/80) makes the excursions above 200. At 220/100, I have a pressure feeling in the head but still function well - even my vision gets a little better, no headache, no feeling poorly, no being dizzy. Still hesitant to start with BP medication - it can make the BP regulation still worse. My resting HR is at 48 bpm, so very low, and there is no space for further lowering with beta-blockers or other medication.
Hi, thanks for your interesting reply. There are these things circadian rhythms, I know, and lo, there are many pretty charts on the Web showing the pattern BP should follow during the day, broadly up in the morning and down at night. I get a bit sarky when I'm told such and such happens at precisely 2 am - is that GMT or DST? Some of the things you mention are confounded in my case by being on steroids for an autoimmune disease, specially body temperature. Aside from the nighttime hi-jinks I tend to use the 'take it by surprise' method for readings. I'm disabled and ordinary household stuff causes me more effort than it would the able-bodied. I'd tend to flop and see what it is immediately after I've taken the rubbish out and such like, then do the five minutes' meditation to see what it is at rest.
Your being disabled most probably contributes to your sitting at the computer all day long. I used to translate technical documentation and also was sitting at the computer more than advised and normal. Somehow, I knew that my deep concentration, during my work, may contribute to the "penetration of the consciousness into Autonomous Nervous System" and make problems. I believe that my increase of BP is connected with my capability to generate and maintain over long time (used to work 10 h/day, 8 h effectively) this very focused concentration. Because of this habit, even sitting at the computer for pleasure causes in my body too much adrenaline or who knows what, what makes my BP go up. Being 72 yo, it is too late and practically impossible to change my habit of over-concentration. What I have noticed, is that light physical activity (bringing my workshop in order, aimless walking through the town or similar) may distract me and make the BP go down. It is the way I intend to go in the future - les psychical stress and more physical activity, but without too much strain.
I have high blood pressure in the night and low blood pressure in the day. The hospital do not seem concerned. I am worried I will have a stroke,they are prevalent in my family. My blood pressure is strange like 149 over 73 and goes down within 30 minutes,it happens every night mostly twice which causes me sleep problems. I can feel the whooshing of my heart in my head. I had operation for SVT 15 months ago and it feels like my heart trying to go into a SVT ATTACK.
May I ask you what your resting HR was before the ablation and what yout SVT bouts looked like? Did you have short bursts of the increased HR, say in the span 90-150 bpm? Was it maybe for prolonged periods of time? How did you feel when in SVT bout? At night, when you have increased BP, what is your HR like?
Both of us have the same type of increased BP - systolic pressure is increased, but diastolic BP is lower, maybe too low.
my heart rate when this happens is 72 and my blood pressure 148 over 73 last night on 2 occasions. Since the ablation in 2023 I have not had attacks of SVT, I just feel like my heart is trying and the 3 pathways I had cauterised does not allow it to happen. During my SVT attacks my blood pressure was not able to be tracked because of the fast heart rate. Yes I had many short runs of SVT over 20 years but because they were short runs that went down on their own it was not diagnosed until the big one in 2017 when I was admitted to hospital. I thought it was just panic attacks,most were in the night when I was asleep. During the day my heart is from 54 to60. My blood pressure gets very low like 109 over 64 but normally it’s 124 over 68. I wish I knew why it goes crazy at night,it makes me quite depressed plus I don,t get a good sleep. I have tried to get an answer from doctors but it is impossible so I go away feeling very despondent. I,m glad I found other people on this site with a similar problem I am reassured that I,m not the only one.
I have exactly the same , normal blood pressure during the day but spikes in the night, I spent 10 days in hospital having tests but they found no reason for it so far. Now on 3 blood pressure medications lercatapine and nibovlol in the mornings and atacand at bedtime. Has stabilizes bit still higher at night than the day but every so often it goes to extremes ,
Friends who have experienced the same dilemma have discovered that many times sleep apnea was the culprit, as evidenced by subsequent sleep apnea studies ordered by their doctors. When the sleep apnea was addressed and corrected, their nocturnal BP spikes subsided.
I also have nocturnal blood pressure, I am now on blood pressure medication in the morning and at bedtime and it has settled down quite a bit. I still have higher blood pressure at night and first thing in the morning but it is now around the 140’s not over 150 my diastolic has been fine
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